A recent study by a leading expert from Newcastle University Business School, Dr Raffaele Filieri, found that the quality of information from consumer reviews, the quality of the website in terms of its capacity to facilitate rapid and effective retrieval of information, customer satisfaction with previous experiences affect trust towards review websites.
A recent study by a leading expert from Newcastle University Business School, Dr Raffaele Filieri, shows that information quality is the most important success factor for travel review websites. With reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp being at the centre of a series of law suits, it’s clear just how serious a problem a negative review can be across the travel sector.
The leading academic has developed a model that is able to measure the factors that affect a customer’s trust and the consequences of this trusting attitude. Trust, Dr Filieri argues, motivates the consumer’s positive word of mouth about a consumer review website, which increases the review site’s authority and influence.
The tested model, of antecedents and consequences of trust towards consumer review websites, can help businesses to understand how consumer review website became so popular and the impact that trust has on consumer perception of websites that publish consumer reviews. The study provides suggestions on what these organizations should do to maintain their leading position as primary information sources for consumers. “Consumer reviews are particularly important nowadays as consumers consult reviews and ratings before buying any sort of product or service”, says Dr Filieri.
Dr Filieri’s study emphasizes the centrality of information quality in online reviews in terms of information credibility, timeliness, value, usefulness and relevancy to satisfy a consumer’s needs. Dr Filieri comments: “Information quality and not the credibility of the source (reviewers) is the most important factor affecting trust towards review websites. Consumers assess the credibility of a reviewer by reading his/her review. It is the quality of the review message that matters to them”.
The study found that the quality of information from consumer reviews, the quality of the website in terms of its capacity to facilitate rapid and effective retrieval of information, customer satisfaction with previous experiences affect trust towards review websites.
“The results imply,” says Dr Filieri, “that even if consumers are aware that not all reviews on Tripadvisor are genuine, they will still trust the website and continue using it because they can still find information that is more valuable (and credible) than information they can find somewhere else, for example in the hotel’s website or other commercial organizations”.
“By improving the quality of the information provided by their users, consumer review websites, such as Tripadvisor, can attain many important achievements such as improved customer satisfaction, perceived website quality and trustworthiness, which can boost their popularity and influence in a specific industry.” comments Dr Filieri. In fact, the study also found that the higher the trust towards a review website, the more its users will read and adopt the reviewers’ recommendations to make up their mind about the products and services they want to buy.
TripAdvisor and Yelp are among the websites that benefit from online consumer reviews, however, Dr Filieri warns, they will need to be more vigilant in order to ensure that most, if not all, reviews and ratings are genuine and trustworthy.
Dr Filieri says: “Keeping the quality of information provided by reviewers high is a major challenge for review websites as publishing fake reviews by posing as a customer is on the rise. The growth of fake reviews might affect the quality of the information hosted by review websites and as a result the credibility and influence of a review website in its industry.”
The findings raise an important question around the influence of sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp for the global travel industry which is worth an estimated $7.7 trillion.
Dr. Raffaele Filieri is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing and a member of the Service Research Group at Newcastle University. Raffaele has published on the topic of electronic word of mouth in leading journals such as among the others Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Knowledge Management; Marketing Intelligence & Planning and many more. Dr. Filieri has received several awards for his research in social media: Best paper award in the Consumer Research Track at Academy of Marketing 2014 in Bournemouth (Shilling in online reviews: An exploratory study on consumer attitude and behaviour with promotional reviews); Best conference paper award (overall) at the Academy of Marketing Conference in Southampton (Understanding consumers adoption of e-WOM through information quality and product ranking).
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
