Finding eWOM customers from customer reviews

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) customers from customer reviews. Thus, firms can precisely leverage eWOM customers to increase their product sales.

Design/methodology/approach

This research proposed a framework to analyze the content of consumer-generated product reviews. Specific algorithms were used to identify potential eWOM reviewers, and then an evaluation method was used to validate the relationship between product sales and the eWOM reviewers identified by the authors’ proposed method.

Findings

The results corroborate that online product reviews that are made by the eWOM customers identified by the authors’ proposed method are more related to product sales than customer reviews that are made by non-eWOM customers and that the predictive power of the reviews generated by eWOM customers are significantly higher than the reviews generated by non-eWOM customers.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed method is useful in the data set, which is based on one type of products. However, for other products, the validity must be tested. Previous eWOM customers may have no significant influence on product sales in the future. Therefore, the proposed method should be tested in the new market environment.

Practical implications

By combining the method with the previous customer segmentation method, a new framework of customer segmentation is proposed to help firms understand customers’ value specifically.

Originality/value

This study is the first to identify eWOM customers from online reviews and to evaluate the relationship between reviewers and product sales.

Citation

Zhao, P., Wu, J., Hua, Z. and Fang, S. (2019), "Finding eWOM customers from customer reviews", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 119 No. 1, pp. 129-147. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-09-2017-0418