Does being proactive pay off? Webcare strategies and their effect on customer emotions, outcomes and privacy concerns

This research investigates the effects of different types of webcare (i.e. monitoring and intervening in online word-of-mouth) on customer satisfaction, loyalty, word-of-mouth intentions and perceived privacy perceptions, thereby controlling for positive and negative customer emotions. Preliminary results indicate differences among the employed webcare strategies in terms of customer outcomes and evoked emotions. Consequently this research contributes to complaint literature and offers managerial guidance as to which strategy works best in differing situations.