Disentangling the Effect of Longitudinal Consumer Reviews On Professional Service

Abstract

Online diaries are series of posts generated by consumers in chronological order to record their post-consumption experience over time. This paper empirically investigates whether providing follow-ups in online diaries affects the sales of professional services, and how this impact is moderated by the perceived risk and the quality of service. We find that providing follow-ups has a positive effect on the sales. The effect is weaker for high-quality service. Interestingly, this effect is asymmetric for service with high and low perceived risks. Our findings provide important implications for both platform owners and service providers.

Hongfei Li

Assistant Professor

Hongfei Li is an assistant professor from the Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics (DSME) of School of Business, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His current research focuses on business analytics in emerging online platforms, applications of artificial intelligence and machine Learning, and statistical methodology.