{"71024":{"#nid":"71024","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Study: Behavior of Online Reviewers Affects Their Credibility","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EConsumers increasingly rely on recommendations in online forums, such as Amazon.com and Angieslist.com, when deciding which products and services to buy. But, in most cases, they\u0027ve never met the posters of these reviews.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWithout traditional cues to assess the credibility of reviewers, people evaluate not only the content of opinions, but also the online behavior of posters, according to a recent article in the Journal of Marketing Research titled \u0022Listening to Strangers.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFactors influencing the perceived value of reviews include posters\u0027 speed of response to queries, the length of their opinions, back-and-forth dialogue, and a reputation for successfully answering others\u0027 queries, found the researchers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe study was conducted by Nicholas Lurie, assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Tech College of Management, and Allen Weiss and Deborah MacInnis, marketing professors at the University of Southern California.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Imagine that you send an e-mail to members of your neighborhood association asking for recommendations for painters. How do you decide whose recommendation to trust?,\u0022 Lurie asks. \u0022Our study suggests that you are likely to give greater weight to those who respond quickly, write a lengthy response, and engage you in a back-and-forth discussion.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to finding that reviewers\u0027 current behavior affects value perceptions, the researchers found that previous reviews can help or hurt depending on whether information seekers want to make a decision about buying a particular product\/service or just learn more about the options.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIf information seekers want to learn more about a particular topic, such as important features to consider when buying a digital camera, they value recommendations from information providers who have made multiple contributions on the same subject. But they tend to discount advice from people whose posting history shows recommendations made across a wide variety of topics.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe reverse is true when information seekers have moved from the learning stage to the decision-making point. When people aim to make a decision, they value posters who\u0027ve made recommendations across a wide variety of topics.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor example, in an online marketing forum, a CEO with a decision-making orientation who needs help choosing between different sales-force automation software packages might value information from an advisor with a wide range of interests more than the recommendations of someone with highly specialized expertise.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers also found that receiving large amounts of information is more important for individuals with a learning goal than for decision-makers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our results suggest that it is critical for marketers (as providers of information) to discern whether potential customers have a learning or a decision-making goal,\u0022 write the researchers. \u0022Making strategic choices about how to respond to customer inquiries and from whom such responses should come is particularly relevant to current marketing environments in which communication is customer initiated.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Consumers increasingly rely on recommendations in online forums, such as Amazon.com and Angieslist.com, when deciding which products and services to buy. But, in most cases, they\u0027ve never met the posters of these reviews.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Professor researches credibility of online consumer reviews."}],"uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2008-09-05 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:15","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2008-09-05T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2008-09-05T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"71025":{"id":"71025","type":"image","title":"Nicholas Lurie","body":null,"created":"1449177338","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:15:38","changed":"1475894628","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:48"}},"media_ids":["71025"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/mgt.gatech.edu\/index.html","title":"College of Management"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"139","name":"Business"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1072","name":"Business"},{"id":"2008","name":"College of Management"},{"id":"2009","name":"Consumer Reviews"},{"id":"2011","name":"Executive"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"1877","name":"Higher Education"},{"id":"1052","name":"Management"},{"id":"1209","name":"MBA"},{"id":"2010","name":"Online"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBrad Dixon\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECollege of Management\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EContact Brad Dixon\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-3943\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}