摘要：The purpose of this exploratory study was to seek evidence of whether word of mouth (WOM) has a significant effect on the attitudes and probability of purchase of potentia l consumers. The study, which partially replicates that of Herr, Kardes and Kim (1991), tested the following two research hypotheses: i. That both positive and negative WOM will affect consumers' probability of purchase and attitudes towards a product. ii. That negative WOM will have a stronger effect than positive WOM on consumers' probability of purchase and attitudes towards a product. The results of this exploratory study indicate that WOM, both positive and negative, is indeed a force that can influence the attitudes and predicted purchase behaviour of consumers. However, due to the lack of significant differences between the experimental groups and the neutral (control) group, this study can not give reliable estimates of the precise magnitude of this effect. Several authors contend that negative WOM is more influential than positive WOM, however, this proposition was not supported by our research
关键词：negative word of mouth; customer dissatisfaction; retention; attitudemeasurement
