When Strangers Converse in Marketplace Environments: Effect of Service Provider-Related Versus Service Provider-Unrelated Conversations

In this work-in-progress, we examine customer-to-customer interactions in service-oriented marketplace environments in terms of service provider related versus unrelated conversations. Then we examine positive and negative affective reactions to these conversations and their relationships with positive and negative word-of-mouth behavior. We found 51% of respondents conversed about the service provider and 30% conversed about something of their own interest but not the service provider. As we found, when consumers talk about the service provider and become happy, they go and tell good things about the service provider. Similarly, when they talk about the service provider and become angry, they go and tell bad things about the service provider. Most interestingly, even when the conversations with strangers had nothing to do with the service provider, consumers still tend to go and tell other people bad things about the service provider

Citation:

Kaleel Rahman and Ulku Yuksel (2009) ,"When Strangers Converse in Marketplace Environments: Effect of Service Provider-Related Versus Service Provider-Unrelated Conversations", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 913-913.