Purpose

This paper aims to investigate textual characteristics of customer reviews that motivate companies to respond (sentiment negativity and sentiment deviation) and how aspects of these company responses (response intensity, length and tailoring) affect subsequent customer review quality (comprehensiveness and readability) over time.

Design/methodology/approach

Leveraging a large data set from a leading app website (Shopify), the authors combine text mining, natural language processing (NLP) and big data analysis to examine the antecedents and outcomes of online company responses to reviews.

Findings

This study finds that companies are more likely to respond to reviews with more negative sentiment and higher sentiment deviation scores. Furthermore, while longer company responses improve review comprehensiveness over time, they do not have a significant influence on review readability; meanwhile, more tailored company responses improve readability but not comprehensiveness over time. In addition, the intensity (volume) of company responses does not affect subsequent review quality in either comprehensiveness or readability.

Originality/value

This paper expands on the understanding of online company responses within the digital marketplace – specifically, apps – and provides a new and broader perspective on the motivations and effects of online company responses to customer reviews. The study also extends beyond the short-term focus of prior works and adds to literature on long-term effects of online company responses to subsequent reviews. The findings provide valuable insights for companies (especially those with apps) to enhance their online communication strategies and customer engagement.

中文翻译：

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在线公司回复对应用程序评论质量的影响

目的

本文旨在研究激励公司做出回应的客户评论的文本特征（情绪消极性和情绪偏差），以及这些公司回应的各个方面（回应强度、长度和定制）如何随着时间的推移影响后续客户评论的质量（全面性和可读性）。

设计/方法论/途径

作者利用领先应用网站 (Shopify) 的大数据集，结合文本挖掘、自然语言处理 (NLP) 和大数据分析来检查在线公司对评论的回复的前因和结果。

发现

这项研究发现，公司更有可能对带有更多负面情绪和更高情绪偏差分数的评论做出反应。此外，虽然随着时间的推移，较长的公司回复会提高评论的全面性，但它们不会对评论的可读性产生重大影响；与此同时，随着时间的推移，更有针对性的公司回复会提高可读性，但不会提高全面性。此外，公司回复的强度（数量）不会影响后续审核质量的全面性或可读性。

原创性/价值

本文扩展了对数字市场（特别是应用程序）中在线公司响应的理解，并为在线公司响应客户评论的动机和影响提供了新的、更广泛的视角。该研究还超出了先前研究的短期关注范围，并增加了有关在线公司对后续评论的反应的长期影响的文献。研究结果为公司（尤其是拥有应用程序的公司）提供了宝贵的见解，以增强其在线沟通策略和客户参与度。