The Influence of Online Reviews and Brand Trust and Customer Equity

Abstract

Using a restricted probability sample of 269 participants, the key findings were: (a) that negative online reviews have a higher negative impact on customer equity than positive online reviews; this is a significant finding because previous findings were mainly short-term focus (on willingness to purchase) and long-term measurement such as ‘customer equity' could provide management with new knowledge on negative online reviews; (b) ‘brand equity' driver has the greatest impact on customer equity as compared to the other two drivers (‘value' and ‘relationship'). This is a significant new finding which could assist management in redirecting its resources; (c) brand trust was unexpectedly found to have a negative relationship with the drivers of customer equity. This could be that long-term outcome as brand trust may prove to be difficult to measure in a cross-sectional study. Furthermore, online reviews have no significant relationship with ‘brand trust.' This may be that brand trust may be more important in short-term outcomes with online reviews.