Listening to online reviews: A mixed-methods investigation of customer experience in the sharing economy

• Published in: Decision Support Systems 2021-10, Vol.149, p.113609, Article 113609
• Main Authors: Liu, Fuzhen, Lai, Kee-Hung, Wu, Jiang, Duan, Wenjing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accommodation; Attitudinal loyalty; Behavioral loyalty; Brand loyalty; Customer experience; Customer satisfaction; Customer services; Mixed methods research; Operations management; Perceived value; Sharing economy
• ISSN: 0167-9236; 1873-5797
• DOI: 10.1016/j.dss.2021.113609

Understanding customer experience is an essential part of service operations for sustaining business in the sharing economy. We investigate the relationship among customer experience, perceived value, and customer loyalty from a stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) perspective. Using a dataset of 4166 listings in a leading Chinese accommodation-sharing platform and text mining and econometric methods to analyze online customer reviews, we find that customer experience manifests in the physical environment and human interaction dimensions. The results show a positive association among customer experience, perceived value, and customer loyalty. Notably, the physical environment and human interaction are equally important in influencing customers' value judgments about their consumption experience. Moreover, perceived value has a stronger positive effect on attitudinal loyalty than on behavioral loyalty. This study adds new insights into the customer experience-perceived value-customer loyalty path by showing that the physical environment and human interaction have the same importance in affecting perceived value and identifying the subtle difference between attitudinal and behavioral loyalty influenced by perceived value in the accommodation-sharing economy. Furthermore, these findings provide managerial insights for service operations management and marketing strategy planning. •The relationship among customer experience, perceived value, and customer loyalty from a S-O-R perspective is investigated.•Human interaction and the physical environment are two crucial aspects shaping customer experience in the sharing economy.•A mixed-methods approach is employed to empirically examine the direct and indirect consequences of customer experience.•The physical environment is as crucial as human interaction in influencing perceived value among Chinese guests.•The positive effect of perceived value on attitudinal loyalty is more prominent than that on behavioral loyalty.