This document summarizes a research study on how luxury hotels in Hong Kong manage negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) online. The researchers interviewed 13 luxury hotel staff and identified three main approaches to responding to eWOM: 1) openly addressing both positive and negative comments, 2) privately contacting guests who wrote negative comments, and 3) not responding at all. The most common approach was to openly respond. Hotels that used the open approach saw it as a way to justify problems, manage customer expectations, and show they care about feedback. Some hotels privately contacted guests to avoid idea copying, keep comments confidential, and emphasize personal touch in complaint handling. Only one hotel did not respond at all, worried about the

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Managing Negative Electronic Word of
Mouth (eWOM) from The Perspective of
Luxury Hotel Managers
Yi-Fan Chen, Rob Law and Ka Kui Yan
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
rob.law@polyu.edu.hk
www.polyu.edu.hk

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Agenda

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Research Background
• Negative electronic word of mouth
(eWOM) and its unprecedented
spreading rate in the cyber space
• The importance of harassing eWOM,
especially negative ones
• Surprisingly, low management response
rate on eWOM channels, e.g., TripAdvisor

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Research Background
Aims of Research:
•To investigate the common approaches that
hotels in Hong Kong employ to address
negative eWOM, and
•To discover the determinants that
influence their selection of
response approaches

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Agenda

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Methodology
• In-depth interview & convenience sampling
• Potential interview participants
– Any practitioners: (1) Be in a supervisory
position or above of the major functional areas
of a luxury hotel, (2) Handle and/or respond to
eWOM, (3) Hold that particular job position for
at least one year

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Methodology
• Content analysis
• Validity
– Respondent validation
– Triangulation methods
• Reliability
– Independence judgments (achieved a score of
82%)

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Agenda

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Respondent Profile
• Conducted 13 interviews with the average
duration of 50 minutes
• Respondents worked:
– At 4-star and 5-star hotels
– In the functional areas of general
management, sales and marketing, rooms
division, and food and beverage division

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Key Findings:
eWOM Response Approach
Three approaches were identified :
1)Openly addressed both positive and
negative eWOM (the most prevalent approach!)
2)Privately contacted the negative eWOM
generators
3)Made no responses (used by only one researched
hotel)

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Key Findings: Reasons of
Adopting The Open Approach
• Responding to positive eWOM
– Express appreciation & reinforce the good selling
points mentioned by customers
• Responding to negative eWOM
– Addressing the matter to the affected customer, and
more importantly providing a chance to justify
problems or untrue comments
– ‘Educating’ future customers and managing their
expectations
– Showing that the hotel cared about guests and their
feedback

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Key Findings: Reasons of
Adopting The Private Approach
• Why privately contacting the complainers?
1) Avoiding idea copying by cunning customers
2) Keeping customer privacy confidential
3) Being uncertain about the effect created by a
reply
4) Preventing the perception of standardized
reply
5) Emphasizing personal touch

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Key Findings: Reasons of
Making No Response
• Why making no response to any eWOM?
1) The belief that service recovery should be
done before customers left the property
2) Worry about the devastating effect brought
by a wrong response

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Agenda

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Conclusions
• The previous literature indicated that a vast
majority of hotels observed the trend in
commentary development. The present
study discovers that, nowadays, more
hotels adopt an active approach in
responding to eWOM.

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Conclusions
• Hotels that adopt the open response approachopen response approach
tend to take a more active control in influencing
and shaping the perception of customers by
expressing their voice in management response.
• In addition, these hotels are wise to capitalize on
the eWOM bandwagon and promote their
products and services through the testimonials of
existing customers.

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Conclusions
• Besides of preventing abuse
and opportunistic customers,
some hotels prefer the privatethe private
approachapproach because they value
the merit and significant effect
of personal touch and
attentiveness in complaint
handling.

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Conclusions
• Taking no overt actionTaking no overt action to deal with any
eWOM is a relatively more conservative
approach and is used by only one hotel in
this study because of the uncertainty of the
sequential consequence brought by a
management response.

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