The relation between dissatisfied customers and the motivation to engage in negative eWOM on a service organizations social community

Abstract: Engagement in social communities online have in the recent years showed a great globalpopularity. Both private people and organizations are using online social communities toposition themselves, taking place on different social media platforms. Every time a statementis made online regarding a product or service of an organization from a potential or formercustomer, the phenomena of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is practiced. The purpose ofthis thesis was to provide a better understanding of the relationship of a perceived level ofcustomer satisfaction and motivation behind engagement in negative eWOM, concerning theservice organization industry. A conceptual framework built on previous literature wasconducted, demonstrating six defined drivers of negative eWOM. A questionnaire was sent outusing a non-probability sample, whereas the respondents answered questions concerningcustomer satisfaction and drivers of eWOM emanating from the conceptual framework.Further, the data was analyzed and presented by conducting a multivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA), whereas the independent variable was explained by the respondents answer ofwhat level of perceived customer satisfaction would motivate engagement in eWOM and thedependent variables was explained by the answers covering the drivers behind negative eWOM.Moreover, hypotheses were stated based on the conceptual framework and was tested with thefoundation of the MANOVA results. In conclusion, five out of six drivers showed a statisticalsignificant result and three out of six hypotheses were thereby supported. The one driver ofnegative eWOM which showed to be most dependent on customer satisfaction were anxietyreduction, which also showed the largest result of difference of estimated mean between anegative perceived level of customer satisfaction and a positive or neither/other. On the otherhand, the one driver that showed to be least depending on customer satisfaction was helping thecompany and the driver that showed the least difference of estimated mean between a negativeperceived level of customer satisfaction and a positive or neither/other was vengeance.