Abstract

Consumers perceive brands on their intended goals that can benefit or harm consumers. These warmth perceptions become consequential when a consumer experiences a product-harm incident. Conventional wisdom suggests that brand warmth may inhibit consumers from reporting such incidents to the brand and/or regulators. However, the authors’ analyses of field data show that brand warmth increases the number of reports of harm incidents. Yet consumers’ underlying motive is to provide feedback rather than complain. Indeed, using machine learning and regressions, and laboratory experiments, the authors demonstrate that brand warmth boosts the proportion of feedback (vs. complaint) reports. Next, they theorize and show that brand warmth induces consumer benevolence, which drives the consumer toward feedback (vs. complaint). Lastly, the authors demonstrate that if managers of a warm brand acknowledge the consumer’s feedback motive in their recovery messages, such acknowledgement enhances consumer satisfaction. The research extends the discipline’s knowledge on how a brand’s warmth perceptions impact consumers’ responses in the aftermath of a product-harm incident and what intervention managers can use in such a context.

中文翻译：

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品牌温暖引发反馈，而不是抱怨

摘要

消费者根据品牌的预期目标来看待品牌，这些目标可能会使消费者受益，也可能会损害消费者。当消费者经历产品伤害事件时，这些温暖的感觉就会变得重要。传统观点认为，品牌热情可能会阻止消费者向品牌和/或监管机构报告此类事件。然而，作者对现场数据的分析表明，品牌温暖会增加伤害事件的报告数量。然而消费者的根本动机是提供反馈而不是抱怨。事实上，作者利用机器学习和回归以及实验室实验证明，品牌热情提高了反馈（相对于投诉）报告的比例。接下来，他们进行了理论分析并证明品牌温暖会引发消费者的善意，从而促使消费者寻求反馈（而不是抱怨）。最后，作者证明，如果一个温暖品牌的管理者在他们的恢复信息中承认消费者的反馈动机，这种承认会提高消费者的满意度。这项研究扩展了该学科的知识，了解品牌的温暖感知如何影响消费者在产品伤害事件发生后的反应，以及管理者在这种情况下可以使用哪些干预措施。