Customer Satisfaction and Word-of-mouth Behavior: an Experimental Study

To how many people customers usually tell about their satisfying or dissatisfying consumption experiences? Is it so that dissatisfied customers are far more active in word-of-mouth than satisfied customers? The purpose of this study was to examine this link between customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth. An experimental research design was employed. In the manipulations of the independent variables, written scenarios about different hotel visits were used. The experiment was conducted in two groups, consisting of 207 students and 250 businessmen and women. As a result, it seemed that the dissatisfied customers did not seem to have higher word-of-mouth intentions than the satisfied customers. However, dissatisfied and satisfied customers seemed to differ in their motives of word-of-mouth behavior. This study may be useful for business students, teachers, and researchers, and businessmen and women in understanding the underlying motives of word-of- mouth behavior, and understanding the importance of satisfied customers as a significant source of word- of-mouth advertising.