| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 企業管理系 === 102 === In recent years, many studies have confirmed that word-of-mouth plays an important role in the consumer decision making processes, especially in the medical or medical cosmetic industry. In order to increase the customer purchase intention, many companies try to use referral reward program to generate exogenous WOM. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of referral reward programs on acceptance of referral likelihood of customers.
The patients of internal medicine department and medical cosmetic center at a Taipei Medical University Hospital participated in a 2×2×2 between-subjects experiment. The independent variables included the size of a reward (small, big), the type of reward (cash, gift), and tie strength (strong, weak). Participants were randomly assigned to the eight experimental conditions. Through independent sample t test, ANOVA and other data analysis methods to verify the proposed hypotheses in order to explore the impact of different reward sizes, types and strength of relationship on consumers’ acceptance of referral likelihood.
The results show the size of the reward does not matter for customers, it’s because that the medical cosmetic products are belong to experimental and high risk perceived products which mean the effects varies. The finding about the reward type shows that rewarding gifts can increase the acceptance of referral likelihood than rewarding cash for a recommendation between strong ties. Besides, we also found that if the recommender who is doctor or has relevant medical background can enhance the likelihood of accepting referral.
|
|---|
