Christodoulides, G, Gerrath, MHEE orcid.org/0000-0001-7422-2181 and Siamagka, NT (2021) Don't be rude! The effect of content moderation on consumer-brand forgiveness. Psychology and Marketing, 38 (10). pp. 1686-1699. ISSN 0742-6046
Abstract
While it is a popular belief that venting helps unload frustrations about negative (customer) experiences, its effects on consumers' emotional states and consumer-brand forgiveness (CBF) remain to be explored. Given that a lot of customer complaints are made online, brands seem ambivalent about managing these public complaints without violating consumers' right to free speech. In two experiments, we find that writing a customer complaint increases negative emotions regarding an incident. Moreover, brands can mitigate this negative effect by asking consumers to moderate their speech—for example, with the help of a content moderation policy. Specifically, if brands impose restrictions on consumers' freedom to express their frustrations, essentially asking them for self-censorship, anger levels in their language decrease and CBF increases. We demonstrate that this effect is stronger for consumers with strong self-brand connection.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Christodoulides, G, Gerrath, MHEE and Siamagka, NT (2021) Don't be rude! The effect of content moderation on consumer-brand forgiveness. Psychology and Marketing, 38 (10). pp. 1686-1699. ISSN 0742-6046, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21458. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. |
Keywords: | complaint management; consumer-brand forgiveness; content moderation; emotions; free speech; negative word of mouth |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Marketing Division (LUBS) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jan 2021 15:45 |
Last Modified: | 11 Feb 2023 01:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/mar.21458 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:170127 |