Understanding customer experiences in online blog environments

Abstract

Blogs have recently become an influential medium and have demonstrated enormous marketing power. Consumers can freely conduct ongoing information searches through this new channel. However, the credibility of blogs plays an important role in creating opportunities for positive customer experiences that can shape consumers’ product/service purchase intentions and decisions. In light of this observation, this study proposes a theoretical framework that delineates the relationship among information credibility, customer experiences, and purchase intention in the blog environment. Data collected from 468 subjects in specific corporate blogs provide support for the proposed model using partial least squares (PLS). The results indicate that information credibility is critical for facilitating customer experiences, which, in turn, is necessary to enhance purchase intention. Additionally, greater involvement with blog significantly increases the effect of customer experiences on purchase intention. The detailed theoretical and managerial implications are presented.

Introduction

Due to the prevalence of network technology, blogs (a contraction of the term “weblog”) have become one of the most popular online platforms (Nielsen Reports, 2009), a highly influential medium (Lin & Huang, 2006), and a new marketing power (Huang et al., 2010, Lee et al., 2008, Litvin et al., 2008). Blogs reveal their effectiveness in searching information, sharing diaries, and making business deals, allowing consumers to collectively comments on issues regarding products/services and compelling online service providers to assign “employees to monitor the blogosphere for what is being written about their services or products”. In doing so, firms learn a lot through direct interactions with customers on a blog space (Wright, 2006). Companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and IBM are at the forefront of the corporate blogging wave, and their employees are encouraged to actively embrace this medium. Companies aggressively exploit blogs to build or maintain relationships with customers because blogs have become a “new form of mainstream communication” (Rosenbloom, 2004). Firms can thus obtain numerous benefits by using blogs to gain immediate feedback from consumers and spread positive word-of-mouth.

According to a survey by JupiterResearch (a Forrester Research Company) in 2008, blogs play a positive role in the processing of ad messages and have more impact on purchase decisions than social networks, creating conversations, and providing a trusted resource that influences purchase decisions (Burns, 2008). There is an advantage in the subject-focused nature of blogs, as it groups online users with similar interests and makes it easier to search for targeted or potential customers (Hsu & Lin, 2008). Firms have begun to recognize blogs as a new venue for planning and organizing technology marketing practices, promoting products/services, and providing technical support for their customers (Wood, Behling, & Haugen, 2006).

For example, Kodak has established a blog (http://pluggedin.kodak.com) to have a more effective channel of communication with their consumers. This blog can pique consumers’ curiosity about and interest in new products. Kodak also utilizes YouTube videos to provide updates on the company's activities (e.g., the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2011), to show the latest products (e.g., waterproof cameras), and to demonstrate how to use software to easily design personal photo books. Likewise, General Motors (GM) has started utilizing their popular FastLane blog (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com) to promote its new cars, to make real-time announcements about auto shows (e.g., 2011 North American Car of the Year during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit), to publish industrial information, and to facilitate discussion so that customers can raise questions and exchange opinions.

Other examples are Amazon, which has developed a series of public blogs (e.g., http://www.enduserblog.com/) focused on different categories (e.g., books, gadgets, movies and TV, and toys) to announce product enhancements, to provide reviews, and to share knowledge and support with their consumers, and Boeing, which uses blogs (http://boeingblogs.com) to gather customer feedback while developing the new 787 Dream liner. Therefore, the emerging importance of blog marketing for contemporary firms cannot be overlooked.

Firms have moved away from traditional “features-and-benefits” marketing toward creating experiences for their customers (Schmitt, 1999a, Schmitt, 1999b). Blogs can record experiential value through various forms (e.g., text description, photographs, and videos). Firms take action regarding experiences and activities on blogs to create valuable customer experiences (Schmitt, 1999b). On blogs, consumers can virtually experience a process in advance through these elaborate records before the purchase stage. For example, in a study on tourism blogs, after research subjects analyzed several messages left by visitors from different countries, over 45% of the subjects exhibited felt a desire to go to Greece “right now” (Lin & Huang, 2006). This phenomenon has achieved an unexpectedly wide impact and represents an emergent communication bridge.

Recently, consumer shopping intention in the context of online stores has attracted increasing attention (Doong, Wang, & Foxall, 2010). The online customer experience becomes an important concept for e-marketers in the context of online shopping (Elliot & Fowell, 2000) and is needed to pay attention to explore the concept (Rose, Hair, & Clark, 2011). There are several differences between the online customer experience and the offline one, including the degree of personal contact, information provision, time period for interactions, and brand presentation (Rose et al., 2011). However, although customer experience has been recognized as an important factor in facilitating purchase behavior in offline stores, it has yet to be fully investigated in an online environment such as corporate blogs. Therefore, we follow the recent call by Rose et al. (2011) for research on how customer experiences may influence purchase intention on corporate blogs.

Furthermore, blogs are a “new channel” for seeking, distributing, and disseminating information and provide a “bi-directional platform” for millions of people to publish material and exchange information (Du & Wagner, 2006). Although blogs are recognized as a conversational and trusted resource that can influence purchase decisions (Burns, 2008), consumers still perceive purchase risk (Cox & Rich, 1964). In an effort to reduce risk and uncertainty, consumers frequently attain a detailed introduction to products/services from formal/organizational sources, and the “real” lens is derived from informal/personal communication sources (e.g., other consumers’ experiences regarding the products/services). In particular, in recent years, adding to the challenges of managing e-customers, it has become crucial to understand how web service quality influences consumers’ online experience, behavior, and attitudes (Udo, Bagchi, & Kirs, 2010). Meanwhile, another new challenge is the plethora of information available in blogs, coupled with the consumers’ heavy reliance on this information, which raises questions regarding the credibility or quality of information on the Internet (e.g., Freeman and Spyridakis, 2004, Hong, 2006, Metzger, 2007).

Blogs are viewed as a powerful source of information about products. Therefore, consumers who acquire the newest and most advanced information about products on blogs can enhance product knowledge or receive updates on the progression of products. Given the importance of information quality on the Web, one might wonder how consumers decide which information is to be trusted or believed (Chai & Kim, 2010). In particular, poor content quality leads to many serious problems, such as the loss of potential consumers.

Although a significant number of online studies exist that can help identify the likely drivers of online customer experiences, much of this research has focused exclusively on information processing (Rose et al., 2011), perceived ease-of-use (Chen & Dubinsky, 2003), perceived usefulness (Geffen, Karahanna, & Straub, 2003), skill (Novak, Hoffman, & Yung, 2000), perceived control (Koufaris, Kambil, & LaBarbera, 2002), perceived benefits (Corner, Thompson, Dillon, & Doolin, 2005), perceived risk (Bhatnagar, Misra, & Rao, 2000), enjoyment (Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001), and trust (Tan & Sutherland, 2004). Little work has been done regarding information credibility in blog context (e.g., Johnson, Kaye, Bichard, & Wong, 2008). Therefore, another aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of information credibility on customer experience in blog environments, that is, how well the consumer believes the blog's information and how to create a positive experience.

Moreover, the level of involvement influences behavior (Zaichkowsky, 1985). People with high involvement might put more effort into obtaining object-related information than those with low involvement. In consumer research, the literature has shown that involvement has played an important role in moderating and explaining variable relationships (e.g., Belch and Belch, 1997, Dholakia, 1998, Poiesz and Cees, 1995). For example, previous studies have discussed the moderating role of involvement in explaining the effects of advertisements (Andrews and Durvasula, 1991, Slama and Tashchian, 1985), the use of pictures as information resources (Miniard, Bhatla, Lord, Dickson, & Unnava, 1991), the appropriateness of service contact personnel dress (Shao, Baker, & Wagner, 2004), and the effects of online consumer reviews (Park, Lee, & Han, 2007) on the purchasing process, but no study has specifically investigated the moderating effect of involvement on consumers’ purchasing intentions with respect to blog context. Therefore, the present study investigates the level of consumers’ involvement with blog when they obtain blog-relevant information.

Accordingly, based on the examples from the Western hemisphere, the subsequent work demonstrates the importance of marketing practices related to corporate blogs. However, relatively little corporate blog research has focused on the Eastern hemisphere in general or on Taiwan in particular. Thus, future research should focus on the Eastern hemisphere. We addressed the following questions: how does customer experiences association with purchase intention in blog environments? How does information credibility association with customer experiences? How does involvement with blog enhance the relationship between customer experiences and purchase intention? The purpose of this article is to contribute to the literature on customer experience and blogs by developing and empirically testing a model that attempts to explain how a blog's information credibility motivates customer experiences and, in turn, influences purchase intention. Moreover, involvement with blog positively enhances the relationship between customer experiences and purchase intention.

This article makes three contributions. First, we help to clarify the nature of online customer experiences. By studying Schmitt's classification of experiences, we view online customer experiences as a type of offline customer experiences that affects online consumer behavior and the ability of a firm to deliver desirable products to customers in online environments. Second, this study represents a step in this direction by reviewing and integrating the literature on information management, consumer behavior, and blog marketing into one model for designing and planning customer experiences in the context of corporate blogs and reconciles what had previously been presumed to be independent. Information credibility, online customer experiences, and involvement with blog have rarely been studied together. Further, based on experiential marketing and on Bloch, Sherrell, and Ridgway's (1986) consumer information search framework, we tested the links among information credibility, customer experiences, involvement with blog, and purchase intention through an empirical study focused on the Eastern hemisphere, specifically Taiwan.

Third, while an information-processing approach explains much of consumer behavior (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982), the experiential perspective of blogs can often be greatly enriching. The results of this study not only extend our understanding of information provision via blogs but also demonstrate that corporate blogs creatively enrich online purchase processes through multifunctional-supporting (e.g., emotion-supporting, trust-supporting, and action-supporting) encounters (i.e., blogs). The blog-hosting service provider needs to understand how to design such encounters to improve online customer experiences. In the remainder of the article, we first present the conceptual framework of our study. Next, we provide the research methodology and the measures used. Then, the data analysis and results are presented. The final section contains a discussion of the results, the contribution and implications of the study, and the study's limitations and suggestions for future research.