Language Style Affects Power of Negative Online Reviews

Barry Babin, the Phil B. Hardin Professor of Marketing and chair of the marketing, analytics, and professional sales program at the University of Mississippi, worked with Lixun Su and Weiling Zhuang, of Eastern Kentucky University; and Shu Zhang, of Northeast Normal University, to study what types of negative online reviews hotels should prioritize responding to and effective response strategies to minimize additional negative ramifications. The research was published in the Journal of Service Theory and Practice.

Managing negative online reviews, or NORs, is paramount for businesses, especially hotels. Some 81% of travelers always or frequently read online reviews before booking a hotel, according to a 2019 study.

"Negative reviews can significantly damage a business's reputation," Zhuang said. "Understanding how to respond effectively can help mitigate this damage and even turn a negative experience into a positive one.

"Using a language style lens, our findings show that firms should differentiate explicit versus implicit NORs, as it is not feasible to handle all NORs due to resource constraints."

Across four studies of hotels based in China, the consistent findings show that implicitly worded negative online reviews were more influential on potential customers than explicitly worded ones.

"Implicit language meaning not really drawing a conclusion," Babin said. "Explicit language meaning a call for action, like, 'Do not go there' or 'Don't stay at that hotel.'

"When the review doesn't really have a precise call to action and it's really left more to the reader to draw a conclusion, they were more dissuasive, meaning they were more likely to discourage somebody from staying in a hotel than an explicitly worded negative online review."

Additionally, the results show that businesses do not need to respond to explicit negative online reviews. They should prioritize addressing negative reviews related to service failures, such as technical malfunctions, over those caused by internal factors, like poor management.

"Let's say someone was complaining about the hotel room being hot," Babin said. "Well, if there was a citywide power failure, there's nothing the hotel could do about it. It's not within their cause.

"Or, if someone had to wait a long time at the counter before being served and they arrived at the same time as three tourist buses, then there's very little the hotel can do."

In some cases, ignoring negative reviews is equally as effective as providing a generic response.

The researchers conducted the studies in China because of its high-context language and culture, meaning communication focuses on underlying context, body language, tone, facial expressions and other factors beyond explicit words.

"In a high-context culture, what's written between the lines is very important," Babin said. "In this research, it was only words. But even in a sentence, there's meaning that you infer based on what's there."

The implications of the studies may be beneficial far beyond China's borders and the hotel industry, but Babin said additional research is needed.

"Service industries are very susceptible to what goes on in online reviews, but even more and more the health care industry, where health care professionals now get health grades or health stats based upon the online reviews and ratings," the Ole Miss professor said.

"We encourage others to jump in and try to replicate what we've done in other cultures and see what the results are."

Top: Businesses can limit the damage from negative online reviews by paying attention to the language and focusing their efforts on responding to those that use more implicit language, a new study concludes. This research, conducted using the hotel industry in China, may have applications in other service industries. Graphic by John McCustion/University Marketing and Communications