Consumer behaviour: Word of Mouth Communication Research have shown word of mouth communication to be a powerful influence on consumers brand attitudes, judgments and purchase intentions. WOMC is more influential than advertising due to its credibility and more interactive nature. Consumers may actively seek out product advice from an expert(solicited WOMC). CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

1. CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Word of Mouth Communication
PRESENTED BY: GROUP 3

2. ABSTRACT
• Consumers who have greater perceived control over a situation are
more likely to evaluate that situation in a favorable manner.
• Consumers who are allowed choice in the WOMC will judge the
communicator to be more trustworthy.
• And consumers will be more experts at processing that information.
• Consumers who have choice will find it more easily in evaluating
the brand,compared to consumers who did not experience a choice
process.
• Consumers who choose their source rely more heavily on the
WOMC information when forming judgments and attitudes.
2

3. • Research have shown word of mouth communication to be a
powerful influence on consumers brand attitudes, judgments and
purchase intentions.
• WOMC is more influential than advertising due to its credibility and
more interactive nature.
• Consumers may actively seek out product advice from an
expert(solicited WOMC).
3
INTRODUCTION

4. • Word-of-Mouth Communication is influential than
advertising
• Consumers seeking out product advice from
someone they perceive to be an expert.
WORD OF MOUTH COMMUNICATION

5. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
• To examine how a choice process leading to WOMC
may differ from WOMC coming from a source that was
not chosen by the customer.
• To extend Kempf & Smith’s trail diagnosticity
framework from a product trial context to a WOMC
context.

6. BACKGROUND LITERATURE
• Psychology and Consumer behavior:
People evaluate an experience differently depending on the
degree of perceived control they have with respect to the situation.
• Control:
Consumers rate a service encounter more favourably when
they perceive that they have more control over the situation.
• Perceived Control:
Perceived control have a positive impact on the psychological
state of an individual, task performance and physiological well being.

7. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES
• In the current study, we investigate the effects of perceived control,
as operationalized by perceived choice, in the context of WOMC.
• Decisional control is directly related to the amount of perceived
control an individual has over a situation.
• It is likely that consumers will feel a greater sense of “ownership” of
the item.
• Consumers tend top rate the information source more positively in
terms of perceived source trustworthiness and perceived source
knowledge.
7

8. HYPOTHESIS 1
8
• Compared to a no-choice situation, consumers who
have the opportunity to choose the WOMC source, will
rate the WOMC communicator having higher:
• a. Percieved source trustworthiness, and
• b. Percieved source knowledge/expertise

9. ANALYSIS
9
Use of construct of Diagonsticity proposed by Kempf &
Smith(1998)
3 types of trial cognitions used-
Trial Validity, Percieved expertise, Trial diagonsticity
Assuming the cognitions are posiyive in nature.

10. LITERATURE BACKINGS
1
0
Bateson (1985) and Deci & Ryan (1985)
Tafarodi, Milne, & Smith (1999)
Jellison & Harvey (1973)

11. SOME SUGGESTED HYPOTHESIS
• WOMC diagnosticity will be higher for consumers who have the opportunity to
choose the WOMC source (communicator), compared to consumers who did not
have free choice of source.
• Perceived expertise will be higher for consumers who have the opportunity to
choose the WOMC source, compared to consumers who did not have free choice of
source.
• Perceived WOMC validity will be higher for consumers who have the opportunity to
choose the WOMC source, compared to consumers who did not have free choice of
source.

12. METHOD
To access the effects of choice on consumers’ perceptions of, and reactions to WOMC
Source choice, the independent variable, was manipulated at two levels.
In one group, subjects were given the opportunity to choose among four potential WOMC
sources, based on a short description of each source applicable to his/her qualifications
In the other (non-choice) group, subjects were simply randomly assigned one of the
WOMC sources after reading the descriptions of the four individuals
12

13. The sample used for the study consisted of 78 undergraduate business
students who received class credit for their participation.
Studentswere considered an appropriate sample given that they are a major
target segment for the stimulus product used in this study -- a retail PC store.
Experimental Procedure Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the two
conditions: choice or non-choice.
13

14. In both conditions, subjects viewed a print ad for a fictitious personal computer retail store
called Phase II Computers.
The ad described the store as offering late model, high quality PCs purchased from large
businesses, refurbished and upgraded where needed, and then offered for sale at the store.
The PCs came with a one year warranty with free tech support during the warranty period.
14

15. After seeing the print ad, subjects filled out ad involvement scales, ad attitude scales, and
brand attitude scales. The purpose of the ad was to give subjects a fictitious product
(store) to react to in the later WOMC phase of the experiment.
After the ad exposure and ad-related measures,subjects were instructed to assume that
they were currently in the market for a PC and areinterested in learning more about Phase
II Computers.
They were told that the store alreadyexisted in other cities and had been in business for
several years. They were told that they would be seeing reviews and feedback from real
consumers in those cities who had had experience withPhase II.
15

16. MEASURES
• Subjects’ cognitive structure or expectancy value from the brand (Σbi ci ei) was
measured using Fishbein & Ajzen’s (1975) multi-attribute model, with the
addition of belief confidence (see Kempf & Smith, 1998). This expanded measure
of expectancy value includes brand belief strength (bi) for each attribute, belief
confidence (ci) and a measure of the value consumers place on each attribute
(ei).
• The salient attributes for which beliefs were measured were Knowledgeable,
helpful salespeople, Low prices, Wide selection of brands, Quality customer
service, and Good reputation.
16
Brand belief
strength-
seven-point
scale
Belief
confidence-
two-
item scale
attribute
evaluations-
bipolar scale
WOMC
diagnosticity
-1-9 scale
Perceived
expertise-1-
9 scale

17. Manipulation Check to determine whether the choice manipulation was successful
at instilling significant differences in the level of perceived control between the two
experimental groups, a three-item measure of perceived choice was collected from
all subjects.

18. • The results of this manipulation showed highly significant differences between
the choice/no choice groups (choice group mean = 8.50, no choice group mean =
2.10, t75=20.37, p<.0001), indicating a successful manipulation.
• Hypotheses Tests To test H1, a simple t-test was performed comparing perceived
source trustworthiness and source knowledge/expertise between the Choice and
the Non-choice groups.

20. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Perceived control had a significant
impact on those consumers’
perceptions of the WOMC
information, brand attitude and
brand expectancy value.
Consumers who believe they have
some level of perceived control
evaluate that information as being
more diagnostic.
Perceive themselves to be an
expert in evaluating that
information than those who did not
have as much control.
While the source is more
trustworthy, not necessarily more
knowledgeable compared to a non-
choice situation

21. Online customer reviews posted by strangers or face-to-face WOMC from friends,
acquaintances, and even strangers.
Some websites have reviewers post information about themselves to help readers decide
which reviews to attend to.
Reviewers are also encouraged to post their profile, often giving their qualifications to
judge particular product categories.
Allowing consumers to carefully choose the reviewers might make the resulting reviews
more influential.

22. THANK YOU