구전커뮤니케이션의 문헌과 상관관계 고찰

Word-of-Mouth Communication: A Review of the Literature and Issues

Word of mouth communication is a behavior of spreading information from mouth to mouth regarding the consumer’s experience of products or services. It is known that this kind of commutation plays an influential role in consumer’s purchase attitude and decision making. As consumers’ needs are diversified and upgraded, the conventional communication channels are unilateral and standardized, but word of mouth is a useful communication that shares consumers’ experience and triggers their motives, so it becomes an effective communication channel more than ever. With the development of information technology, most communication methods are not taking place in offline through face-to-face manner, but in cyber space without even meeting each other. Therefore consumers are not interested in one-sided information provided by companies; they are prone to share information in cyber space, for instance blogs, online reviews and SNS. Consumers find it more trust worthy than information provided by companies alone. It is not only a commercial purpose, but also a mutual beneficial purpose. Consumers provide information while also receive benefits from communication of this kind, thus more tended to become a member of this process. It is from this perspective that this research decides to review historic literatures of word of mouth, discloses the definition and theoretical concepts. And it is also a study of the features and effectiveness of word of mouth communication, wishing to make some contribution to future discussion of this concept, and possibly allow companies to find a solution to the puzzle of consumer communication in a rapidly changing market.