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Financial services Apps: What makes the difference between a great and a ghastly review?

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Abstract

Internet as we know it, has entered a spiral of decline while mobile Apps are gradually taking over and are steadily changing the way we go about our individual daily lives. This study examines the fact that certain financial services Apps are far more successful than others, specifically by looking at what makes a user think that an App may be great, and give it a favorable review, or that it is rather ghastly, and give it an unfavorable review. Next, we describe a study of six of the most popular financial services Apps on the iTunes App Store, for which reviews were analyzed using DICTION software. Employing Diction variables, ambivalence and temporal terms were prevalent in negative reviews while accomplishment, motion, optimism and certainty, were predominantly expressed in positive reviews. Human interest, on the other hand, seemed to be uniformly distributed between both types of reviews.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Corporate Communication, University of Malta, Msida, MSD2080, Malta

    Joseph Vella

  2. Industrial Marketing, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87, Luleå, Sweden

    Åsa Wallström

  3. Division of Industrial Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden

    Mana Farshid

Authors
  1. Joseph Vella
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  2. Åsa Wallström
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  3. Mana Farshid
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Correspondence to Joseph Vella.

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Vella, J., Wallström, Å. & Farshid, M. Financial services Apps: What makes the difference between a great and a ghastly review?. J Financ Serv Mark 22, 132–138 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41264-017-0031-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41264-017-0031-8

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