Purpose

Customer referral programs (CRPs) are popular; however, they often generate low referral rates. The authors propose that certain CRP referral tasks may hinder consumers’ referral likelihood. This study aims to explore the effects of referral tasks (communication content and approach) on customers’ referral likelihood on social platforms and the role of self-construal.

Design/methodology/approach

This study establishes a theoretical model based on online social platforms and conducts three scenario-based experiments. The authors obtain data from consumers on Sojump platform and test the hypotheses using analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis and mediation analysis in SPSS. The valid sample sizes for these three experiments are 288, 203 and 214, respectively.

Findings

Three experimental studies indicate that communication content and approach have a significant effect on referral likelihood. Furthermore, the effect of communication content on referral likelihood depends on the communication approach. Self-construal plays a moderating role in the effect of communication content and approach on perceived social costs.

Originality/value

CRPs typically involve tasks and rewards; consumers are asked to complete a referral task and then receive a reward. Both tasks and rewards can affect an individual’s willingness to participate; however, existing studies on CRP focus primarily on the reward component. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to systematically investigate the role of referral tasks (communication content and approach) in CRPs. The authors extend the related research by examining the impact of referral tasks on consumers’ willingness to recommend. In addition, this study introduces self-construal into CRPs research.

中文翻译：

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推荐任务对社交平台上客户推荐可能性的影响

目的

客户推荐计划 (CRP) 很受欢迎；然而，他们的推荐率往往很低。作者提出，某些 CRP 转介任务可能会阻碍消费者转介的可能性。本研究旨在探讨推荐任务（沟通内容和方式）对客户在社交平台上推荐可能性的影响以及自我解释的作用。

设计/方法论/途径

本研究建立了基于网络社交平台的理论模型，并进行了三个场景实验。作者从 Sojump 平台上的消费者获取数据，并使用 SPSS 中的方差分析 (ANOVA) 分析和中介分析检验假设。这三个实验的有效样本量分别为 288、203 和 214。

发现

三项实验研究表明，沟通内容和方法对推荐可能性有显着影响。此外，沟通内容对推荐可能性的影响取决于沟通方式。自我构念在沟通内容和方式对感知社会成本的影响中起着调节作用。

原创性/价值

CRP 通常涉及任务和奖励；消费者被要求完成推荐任务，然后获得奖励。任务和奖励都会影响个人的参与意愿；然而，现有的 CRP 研究主要集中在奖励部分。据作者所知，这是第一项系统调查转诊任务（沟通内容和方法）在 CRP 中的作用的研究。作者通过研究推荐任务对消费者推荐意愿的影响来扩展相关研究。此外，本研究将自我建构引入CRPs研究中。