Can negative word-of-mouth have any impact on brand sustainability?

Abstract

Companies invest large amounts of funds to support their image as an incentive to make customers purchase the company's products. This paper's main objective is to estimate the impact of negative word-of-mouth on brand/product sustainability. As word-of-mouth represents customers' conversation regarding the quality of the company's products, the customer's voice is often analyzed to avoid negative experience outreach. History has carried several cases in which outreach could endanger a company's bottom line or even existence. The purpose of our study was to find out if this assumption could be supported. Approximately 100000 product reviews were collected in six selected categories in the Slovak market. The quantity of positive and negative word-of-mouth (PWOM/NWOM) was analyzed. It was found that there are approximately 15 times more positive reviews than negative ones. Based on previous studies' results, worst- and best-case scenarios were modeled to determine the possible impact of both PWOM and NWOM. It was found that in both cases, the direct reach of PWOM is higher than that of NWOM. On average, in the worst-case scenario, the reach of PWOM is 3.93 times higher than the reach of NWOM. In the best-case scenario, the reach of PWOM is 8.85 times higher than the reach of NWOM. According to the results, brand managers should focus on getting more positive reviews and thus positive word-of-mouth as it may have a stronger effect on the brand's sustainability. In other words, getting more ambassadors from the pool of customers satisfied with the brand might seem a reasonable strategy to avoid the potential danger from customers who were not satisfied with the products and willing to spread the word about their dissatisfaction.