Expressions of Gratitude Applied to Business: A Lesson for Managing Online Reviews

Online reviews are critical for businesses to thrive, but their management is not often effective. Using data from social media platforms, with more than 600 observations of public online interactions between business owners and customers, we showed that strategic management of online reviews predicts a positive increment of online reputation. Publicly expressing gratitude (Study 1) and, specifically, directing these expressions towards beneficial online reviews (Study 2) are effective strategies supporting a general increase of the business online score. These findings identify public expressions of gratitude as a responsive, attentive gesture that signals care and consideration towards customers. Such gesture promotes the online reputation through satisfaction between business community relationships.

Service Delivery and Branding Management in Digital Platforms: Innovation through Brand Extension

Purpose. Resources and experiences may give platform owners an advantage to expand their business to new areas of possible growth. However, can the winner take it all? Or is the spandex rule—“just because you can, does not mean you should”—valid for platforms, as well? The present study is aimed at narrowing this research gap by focusing on the innovation through brand extension impact on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in an ever-greater area of the service sector. Design/Methodology/Approach. The partial least-squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is applied to analyse the questionnaires and explore the relationships between the proposed research model’s constructs. Findings. The results reveal that service innovation through brand extension impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty favourably. Customer satisfaction mediates the relation between innovation through brand extension and brand loyalty. Parent brand reputation intensifies service innovation through the impact of brand extension on customer satisfaction and loyalty, while perceived risk deters its effects. Customer innovativeness enhances customer satisfaction. Finally, perceived category similarity (fit) augments customer satisfaction while impacting loyalty negatively. Practical Implications. The findings provide a deeper understanding of innovation and brand management in digital platforms and forge a promising path forward for marketing researchers investigating the platform economy. Originality/Value. Little remains acknowledged regarding the theoretical interface of innovation through brand extension in the digital platform sphere and its consequences on customer behaviour. Building on this lacuna, the authors adopt an underexplored object that focuses on digital platform innovation through brand extension, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty.

Using Emoji in Response to Customer Reservation Requests and Service Reviews

The use of paralinguistic cues—including emoji—in computer-mediated communication has become prevalent in recent years. Brands and service providers have also been using these cues in their communication strategies. And yet, research examining how such emoji use influences customers’ perception and behavior is still scarce. In two experiments (combined $N=401$ ), we tested if using emoji to reply to a customer request (restaurant reservation, Study 1) or online review (hotel experience, Study 2) influenced perceptions of the brands. The emoji used by the brand was always congruent with the valence of the situation. Results from both studies revealed that the presence (vs. absence) of emoji influenced consumers’ perception of the brand/service at several levels. Specifically, the restaurant/hotel was perceived to have a more informal communication style, have a warmer service, and be more modern. In Study 1, we also observed that emoji use had a positive impact on competence perception and reservation intentions. Importantly, these effects of emoji use were not moderated by the valence of the situation. Taken together, our results showed that emoji can influence different perceptions about brands and services and determine how customers relate to brands.

The pragmatic functions of emojis in Arabic tweets

Emojis have been used on different platforms and in different languages to express feelings and emotions in online communication, which has led to their widespread familiarity among social media users worldwide. The current study is concerned with the pragmatic functions (speaker and contextual meanings) of emojis in Arabic tweets. The study used mixed methods to analyze the use of emojis and emoji position to identify their functions and possible gender similarities and differences. The dataset of this study consists of 421 Arabic tweets by Arab users at the beginning of 2022 (149 by male users and 272 by females). This study addressed three questions: (1) What are the common emojis used in Arabic tweets and their position in the tweet? (2) What are the pragmatic functions of these emojis? (3) What are the possible differences and similarities between male and female users in the use of emojis? The findings revealed that Loudly Crying Face, Red Heart, Face with Tears of Joy, Broken Heart, Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes, Pleading Face, Slightly Smiling Face, Pensive Face, and Weary Face were preponderant in Arabic tweets. Also, this study found seven pragmatic functions ranging from the most to the least frequent: Multiple functions, Reaction, Action, Decoration, Physical action, Softening, and Tone modification. Regarding the role of gender, there were both similarities and differences in terms of the frequency of emoji use, emoji position, and function. Moreover, the findings showed the importance of context to interpreting the functions of emojis. Finally, the findings have implications for emoji designers and Natural Language Processing (NLP).