Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870

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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/elerap

Spreading the Word: How Customer Experience in a Traditional Retail T

Setting Influences Consumer Traditional and Electronic Word-of-mouth
Intention
⁎
Jose Ribamar Siqueira Jr.a, , Nathalie García Peñab, Enrique ter Horstc, German Molinad
a
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
b
CESA, Bogotá, Colombia
c
Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
d
Idalion Capital Group, London, United Kingdom

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The study of customer experience has gained substantial importance in the consumer behavior field because of
Bayesian modeling how it impacts the development of long-term relationships with customers. The next frontier of customer ex-
Customer experience perience research involves new contexts represented by new channels offered by retailers, thus sparking research
Electronic word-of-mouth interest in the experience lived by customers not only in physical stores but also in virtual stores as a clear
e-WOM
representation of the concept of omni-channels. Within this context, consumers’ actions on social media are
Retail
Social media, word-of-mouth
particularly important because they can act as product or service endorsements to other customers affecting their
purchase intentions. In this article, we attempt to bridge the gap between real-world retail experiences and how
they connect with the online retail environment through consumer behavior contrasting traditional and eWOM
intention at the point of experience immediately after its consumption in a physical setting. In order to do so, a
Bayesian hierarchical approach is used to provide an adaptable, low-sample statistical infrastructure for the
analysis of the proposed relationships. Our findings show that customer experience in physical stores still have a
higher impact on consumer traditional WOM intention than on eWOM intention.

1. Introduction research aims to contribute to the knowledge of cross-channel con-

The e-commerce boom has caused thousands of companies with
traditional stores to seek out an online presence, develop mobile ap-
plications, among other strategies, in order to respond to market needs.
Nevertheless, most of the time these efforts do not receive the same
degree of attention these company pay to their traditional outlets, ne-
glecting the implementation of the holistic experience the consumer
deserves. The omni-channel approach has emerged as a possible
strategy for the integration of the channels, to thus offer a true and
proper holistic experience to the consumer (Bell et al., 2014).
One of the by-products of customer experience is the engendering of
WOM behavior, which refers to any statement made by a current or
potential consumer about the brand or product, be it positive or ne-
gative (Wang et al., 2018). This research proposes to examine the nexus
of customer experience within a physical store and the resulting cus-
tomer WOM behavior intention, both traditional and electronic, thus
promoting a better understanding of the role of experience in one
channel and the behavioral response it produces in another. Thus, this
sumer behavior, and to develop valuable management implications for
stores that offer products through multiple channels to their customers.
Customer experience is operationalized as a construct with three di-
mensions: peace-of-mind, new media impression and peer-to-peer (P2P)
interaction.
Social media has become a major communication hub through
which consumers seek out product information and discuss, share, and
voice their consumption experiences. It has empowered customers to
decide when and how information is shared and distributed, while at
the same time allowing individuals to reach large groups without time
or distance constraints. As a consequence, consumers’ actions on social
media can also serve as endorsements or recommendations to other
customers and, in turn, affect these customers’ purchase intentions
(Wang et al., 2012). This form of communication produced by in-
dividuals online has been defined as user generated content (UGC)
(Trusov et al., 2009), and this word-of-mouth (WOM) communication
becomes electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) once it is addressed online to
a specific audience (Lamberton and Stephen, 2016). Such information

⁎
Corresponding author at: Carrera 7 No 40b-36, Ed. Jorge Hoyos, 4o. Piso, Bogotá, Colombia.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2019.100870
Received 17 July 2018; Received in revised form 8 June 2019; Accepted 8 June 2019
Available online 10 June 2019
1567-4223/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
J.R. Siqueira, et al.
later becomes social word-of-mouth (sWOM) when it is shared through
social media networks. In very basic terms, sWOM is WOM that takes
place in social networks.
Approximately 75% of WOM communications still take place in the
traditional face-to-face format (Berger, 2014). Nevertheless, because of
the increase in online communications and the influence it exerts,
eWOM has become an important research topic. The effect WOM
communication has, be it traditional or electronic, on customers’ atti-
tudes and behaviors while shopping can be attributed to the uncertainty
that customers experience regarding the quality of a product or service,
which drives them to rely on the experiences of other consumers
(Mudambi and Schuff, 2010). Because WOM interaction is more private
in nature, the message can resonate more with those who receive it
(Berger, 2014). Conversely, the presence of physical and psychological
distance between the source and the audience in an eWOM exchange
can affect audience skepticism. Both marketing practitioners and aca-
demics have acknowledged the impact that communication tools such
as social media can have on the ways people share their experiences
and engage in eWOM (Zhang et al., 2017). While there is extensive
research investigating WOM and eWOM separately, not many studies
have directly compared two, nor have they compared which one con-
sumers tend to favor (Lamberton and Stephen, 2016). A better under-
standing of the factors that help promote the two forms of WOM can
enable retailers to influence some scenarios more favorably by steering
consumers towards sharing information that could support the
achievement of business goals.
The goal of this study is to investigate how customer experience
affects consumers’ traditional and eWOM intentions, and which of the
two forms of WOM consumers are more likely to utilize. The shift to-
ward e-commerce has increased research interest in both WOM and
eWOM (Berger and Schwartz, 2011; Trusov, Bucklin, and Pauwels,
2009). An earlier study by Eisingerich et al. (2015) examined the im-
pact that brand experience had on consumers’ WOM and sWOM in-
tentions, but it was limited to one brand and one single item used to
measure them. While a single question can provide some general gui-
dance, it does not provide an in-depth explanation of what is truly
driving the experience. In order to do so, we propose a model centered
on factors already established in the literature (Kim and Choi, 2013;
Klaus et al., 2013) that are known influence the consumer experience
(CX), with the addition of the new media impression construct, which is
deemed pertinent to the context investigated.
We then examine the effect of CX on traditional and electronic
WOM intention, where eWOM was operationalized in the form of
sWOM, and where experience was assessed in a traditional retail en-
vironment immediately after a shopping experience occurred. This
study adopted a Bayesian hierarchical approach to the tested model to
provide an adaptable, low-sample statistical infrastructure for the
analysis of such relationships. This is a departure from the frequentist
approaches traditionally used in structural equation modeling (SEM) or
partial least squares path modeling (PLSPM), with the Bayesian approach
providing several advantages over these methods, such as parameter
and hierarchy interpretation, reduced sample size limitations, adapt-
ability to missing data specifications, and model/computational flex-
ibility. We will describe this further in the methods section.
Most of the studies available discussing WOM and eWOM take place
exclusively within either real-world or online contexts; this study at-
tempts to bridge the gap between real-world retail experiences and how
they connect with the online retail environment through consumer
behavior expressed in the form of eWOM. The proposed theoretical
model provides a significant contribution to WOM theory by con-
trasting traditional and eWOM intention at the point of experience. This
contrast is significant because of the increasingly central role social
media plays in consumers’ lives nowadays. The question we expect to
answer is: given the ubiquity of social media, when an experience takes
place in the real world, do consumers prefer to share their experience
perceptions online or in person? This study also contributes to the
2
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870
marketing literature by examining two different forms of post-purchase
WOM behavior, cross-channel intention behavior, as well as by adding
to the body of literature on the relationship between CX, WOM, and, in
particular, sWOM.
2. Literature review
2.1. Word of mouth (WOM)
WOM is communication that occurs between parties, either physi-
cally or online. WOM communication is important for service providers
because the intangible nature of their offerings prevents consumers
from gathering relevant knowledge about them before purchasing them
(Zeithaml et al., 1985). This leads customers to both pay more attention
to cognitive insights and consumption patterns of other customers
(Hinz et al., 2011), and also to allow their decisions to be affected by
interactions with other consumers (Cialdini, 1993). Consequently,
customer experience feedback is provided in the form of a message,
which can be unknown, positive, negative or mixed (Walther, 2011).
The WOM literature has focused mostly on product-related behavior,
focusing mostly on the role that consumption experience behavior plays
in determining the nature of ensuing customer communication (Bitner,
1992). Within the retail context, WOM communication can take place
before or after a product or service consumption activity. Our research
focuses exclusively on post-service delivery WOM intention.
2.1.1. Traditional WOM
The WOM process is traditionally described as occurring through
spoken communication that is exchanged in a face-to-face context in-
volving two parties. It is defined by its synchronicity and the relatively
short delay in the exchange of words and responses (Bickart and
Schindler, 2001). WOM can influence consumer decision-making
(Mangold et al., 1999), reflecting the interpersonal influence between
sender and receiver, shaping the receiver’s attitudes, either positively or
negatively (Sweeney et al., 2008). This can be attributed to the re-
ceiver’s perception of the sender’s neutrality, increasing the perception
of message reliability above any firm-provided communications
(Silverman, 2011).
Anderson (1998) described WOM as informal communication that
can be used to evaluate products/services between private parties and
did not consist of formal contacts and/or communications between
consumers and a firm. This form of communication can be considered a
consumer decision-making input or an outcome of the purchase process
(Bone, 1995). It can be either positive or negative, with consumers
displaying a higher propensity to engage in negative WOM as opposed
to positive WOM after an experience (Angelis et al., 2012). The general
consensus is that consumers place more trust in WOM than in tradi-
tional media (Goldsmith and Horowitz, 2006), particularly when
seeking information about a product or service (Moorthy et al., 1997).
The behavior exhibited by consumers can be attributed to knowledge
asymmetry that manifests itself during the evaluation of alternatives, or
simply when trying to satisfy their needs (Maity et al., 2014). The in-
tensity of consumer information search to address knowledge asym-
metry is proportional to the amount of work required to gather and
process the needed information (Maity et al., 2014), making WOM a
reasonable resource due to its neutral perception.
Service marketers acknowledge the importance of WOM commu-
nications, as most consumers engage in WOM activities that relate to
their consumptive behavior (Singh, 1988). There is a clear relationship
between service quality perceptions and favorable WOM already es-
tablished in the literature (Parasuraman et al., 1988). WOM influences
product judgment because face-to-face WOM is more vivid than other
forms of communication (Herr et al., 1991). Additionally, SCT posits
that WOM can have a positive impact in the credibility of the source
(Lindsey-Mullikin and Petty, 2011), and can be also supported by a
good visual impression that further assuages the audience (Eagly and
J.R. Siqueira, et al.
Chaiken, 1993).
2.1.2. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM)
WOM also occurs in the online world, and the statements made by
customers (potential, actual or former) are available to everyone with
Internet access (Wang et al., 2018). Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)
normally occurs via written word, and it is more asynchronous than
traditional WOM because of the breaks that can occur during the
communication process. Written communications also vary according
to both the level of asynchrony associated with them and the role time
plays in message construction, editing, and polishing (Chafe and
Tannen, 1987). Asynchrony allows the communicating parties to select
which communications to engage in, when to engage in them, and the
manner in which they can present themselves (Toma et al., 2008).
According to Chu and Kim (2011), eWOM can be defined by three
aspects: opinion seeking, opinion giving, and opinion passing. Opinion
seeking and giving have been well-researched as dimensions of tradi-
tional WOM. Opinion seeking intensity is determined by the effort as-
sociated with opinion-seeking behaviors of customers when searching
for information, as well as by advice from others prior to making a
purchase decision (Flynn et al., 1996). Opinion-giving behavior is ob-
served more frequently in opinion leaders who can influence other
customers’ attitudes and behaviors (Feick and Price, 1987). Opinion-
passing behavior is defined by the online forwarding/passing of in-
formation that improves the flow of eWOM (Sun et al., 2006), and re-
sults in multidirectional communication that enables a quicker dis-
semination of the word (Norman and Russell, 2006). Customers can
now share their opinions with a much larger number of people than
before through written texts, videos, and audio files (Sohn, 2014).
Online communicators behave differently than face-to-face com-
municators. Online communicators display fewer inhibitions, are more
willing to share personal information, and are willing to be more honest
when expressing their viewpoints (Roed, 2003). These behaviors might
be attributed to the greater anonymity afforded by the internet, as
opposed to face-to-face interactions. The perception of decreased
anonymity associated with social media has positively impacted the
trustworthiness of eWOM information (Chu and Choi, 2011). Compared
to its traditional counterpart, however, eWOM also suffers from the
limitation of the number of cues that can be inserted in the information
exchange (Henderson and Gilding, 2004). Online communication also
allows for information to be sought out at different times and at dif-
ferent paces because the information transmitted loses little of its in-
tended meaning (Sun et al., 2006).
One of the biggest weaknesses of eWOM has to do with the need for
a common language across all parties, along with a minimum level of
literacy for successful message comprehension and dissemination
(Burgoon et al., 2002). The reliance on text can lead to misinterpreta-
tions and confusion, making it harder to express abstract concepts such
as humor, sarcasm, or irony (Chiu et al., 2007). Nevertheless, social
cognitive theory (SCT) argues that eWOM communications may have
higher comprehension degrees because they require people to pay more
attention to its written content, in contrast to the distractions and noise
normally present in face-to-face exchanges (Berger, 2014). Conversely,
some authors have argued that eWOM tends to be more influential than
traditional WOM because of its speed, broader reach, and the absence of
live human pressure (Phelps et al., 2004). Hennig-Thurau et al. (2010)
argue that eWOM on social media is becoming more relevant that tra-
ditional WOM in terms of influencing consumer behavior.
2.2. Peace of mind (POMD)
The literature on peace of mind is relatively young. Some of it can be
can be found in the medical field (Mack et al., 2009; Parrish and Quinn,
1999) while the majority of it treats peace of mind as a dimension of the
happiness construct. Happiness within this context is presented as a
“state of durable contentment and plenitude or inner-peace” (Dambrun
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870
et al., 2012, p. 2). From a more religious perspective, peace of mine is
associated with inner peace, serenity and harmony (Kaewmanee and
Teerakul, 2015) and is defined as “the extent to which people are at
peace with themselves” where this peace is the result of a personal
relationship with God or of a set of beliefs (Fleck and Skevington,
2007). POMD has also been linked to engagement and found to posi-
tively impact the behavior of students that experience internal peace
and harmony improving their propensity to display more behavioral,
cognitive, and emotional involvement in academic matters (Datu et al.,
2018). Research results also showed that positive emotions may help
with the consolidation of key psychological resources lending empirical
support to the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001). These
findings seem to support the idea that the promotion of positive emo-
tional states can facilitate the consolidation of psychological resources
in different environments.
Datu et al. (2018) argued that previous literature on POMD focused
on the development of programs to enhance other positive emotions
such as gratitude (Froh et al., 2008) and kindness (Layous et al., 2012)
but were not aware of programs designed to enhance POMD. The idea
of designing environments or situations that help support POMD has
found support in some academics that have recognized the significance
of developing guided context-sensitive positive psychological inter-
ventions (Datu et al., 2018). When discussing the concept of peace of
mind, Haybron (2008) frequently associated it with the feeling of
tranquility, and specifically as being an aspect of the emotional re-
sponse attunement. Attunement has to do with peace of mind or tran-
quility and confidence but also encompasses the idea of uncompression
which refers to a state of not feeling harried, anxious or defensive while
at the same time feeling emotionally open. Raibley (2012) argues that
peace of mind thrives in situations where anxiety, worry, irritability,
and jumpiness are absent and at the same time implies that there is a
clear benefit to fostering these states in order to support the develop-
ment of peace of mind.
The most recent contribution to the literature provides for the first
time a more scientific representation of the construct. Lee et al. (2013,
p. 5) defined peace of mind as “the extent to which one experiences
inner peace and harmony.” Within the context of their study internal
peace refers to the concept of ideal affect (how people want to feel) and
it is through its experience that the states of mind such as peacefulness,
calmness and serenity are captured (Tsai et al., 2006), and internal
harmony deals with states of mind that include balance and harmony
(Lee et al, 2013). The relationship between inner peace and harmony
was presented as reciprocally related, meaning that people can achieve
internal peace through the process of harmony or vice-versa, suggesting
that individuals in a state of peace-of-mind can experience both internal
peace and harmony as one coherent state (Lee et al, 2013).
Peace-of-mind (POMD) within the CX context adopted for this study
refers to how customers assess their interaction with a provider before,
during, and after a transaction takes place (Klaus et al., 2012). Ac-
cording to the authors, the peace of mind dimension is strongly asso-
ciated with the emotional aspects of experience process and is a re-
flection of the emotional benefits transmitted by the service provider
that help put customers at ease by decreasing the perception of risk
when acquiring a new product or service and consequently improving
overall confidence in the provider. The emotional nature of product or
service acquisition at the time of decision-making can alter perceptions
and influence decisions, with some of the emotions experienced by
customers potentially resulting in poor decisions (Loewenstein and
Lerner, 2003). Another emotional component of this process occurs in
the form of the consumer loss-aversion sentiment, and how it affects
decision-making. Even though loss aversion is a behavioral component
inherent to consumers, it can be mitigated by an increase of peace-of-
mind, particularly within the CX service context (Novemsky and
Kahneman, 2005). The ability to positively support a customer’s feeling
of POMD is important in a service environment because of its intangible
nature, which, as a result, tends to intensify consumers’ perceptions of
J.R. Siqueira, et al.
increased risk (Levitt, 1981). Given the role that POMD plays in the
promotion of positive emotional states that can facilitate the con-
solidation of psychological resources and in the cognitive assessment
experience by customers, we posit:
Hypothesis 1 (The Piece of Mind → Customer Experience Hypothesis). The
feeling of peace-of-mind has a positive influence on customer experience.
2.3. New media impression (NMI)
Brand contacts still represent the most significant component of
investment in marketing communications, with mass media in parti-
cular accounting for a significant portion of this total. According to
Chattopadhyay and Laborie (2005), investments in marketing com-
munication can represent as much as 90 percent of the total marketing
budget of a company. The increase in the total number of sources where
consumers can obtain information about products and services has re-
duced the influence traditional media held in the past.
The new media impression variable adopted and adapted for this
study was based on the mass media construct used by Khan and
Rahman (2015). The original study introduced mass media as a variable
of brand experience, mostly because the existing literature identified it
as such. Mass communication can occur through different channels
(broadcast media, print media, outdoor media, radio media, etc.) by
which a brand interacts with customers, and those can help support the
brand. This can ultimately affect customer experience, along with
customer satisfaction, loyalty, and WOM intention (Chattopadhyay and
Laborie, 2005).
Khan and Rahman (2015) considered different types of commu-
nication channels in order to properly represent mass media as pre-
sented in the literature, but they did not focus on the role of internet
media. We include internet media in our study by rewording the ori-
ginal instrument, from mass media to new media, and making it clear
that it refers to sources such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. This
variable focuses on the impression new media makes on customers, as
well as their consequent perceptions that new media provides them
regarding correct and up-to-date information about a retailer. Thus, we
propose that:
Hypothesis 2 (The New Media Impression → Customer Experience
Hypothesis). Customer exposure to new media impression will have a
positive influence on customer experience.
2.4. Peer-to-peer interaction (P2P)
Peer-to-peer interaction (P2P) is a form of interpersonal commu-
nication (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955) that can occur among customers
and significantly impact customer experience (Verhoef et al., 2009),
either on site or off-site (Harris et al., 2000). These interactions with
other customers can supply customers with an outlet to express their
perceptions of a product or service (Lemke et al., 2011). This interac-
tion can take the form of helping behavior, knowledge sharing
(McGrath and Otnes, 1995), or disruptive behavior (Verhoef et al.,
2009).
The influence of interpersonal communication has long been dis-
cussed in social psychology literature (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955), and
its effects can be found in the consumer behavior literature (Engel et al.,
1995). Consumer behavior literature has shown that environments of a
higher intangible nature lead consumers to place a higher degree of
importance on interpersonal communications (Zeithaml et al., 1993).
Interpersonal communications in peer-to-peer interactions occur in the
form of WOM and can influence customers’ attitudes and behavior
(Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006). This form of WOM behavior is a result
of a scenario where service or product quality is difficult to assess,
causing consumers to resort to the previous experiences of other con-
sumers (Mudambi and Schuff, 2010). This is also supported by SCT
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870
(Griffin et al., 2010), where the proximity of consumers to someone
discussing a personal product experience can increase the effectiveness
of the communication, ultimately producing a response (Daft and
Lengel, 1986). Consumers also rank interpersonal communications
higher in importance than other promotional methods (Manning et al.,
2017). Given the role P2P plays as a form of product knowledge com-
munication, we offer:
Hypothesis 3 (The P2P Interaction → Customer Experience Hypothesis).
Peer-to-peer interaction within the store will have a positive influence on
customer experience.
2.5. Customer experience (CX)
Klaus et al. (2013, p. 518) defined consumer experience (CX) as “the
customers’ dynamic continuous evaluation process of their perceptions
and responses to direct and indirect interactions with providers and
their social environment pre-, during and post-purchase and/or con-
sumption of the offering at any given point in time.” Based on this
definition, CX is the result of the cognitive, affective, emotional, social,
and physical responses a customer might have to elements that might or
might not be controlled by a provider.
According to the literature, most of the value produced by CX occurs
in the form of the outcomes it stimulates (Homburg et al., 2017; Meyer
and Schwager, 2007). Even though the measurement of these outcomes
on business performance is difficult (O’Neill et al., 2002), some re-
searchers have hypothesized that CX can impact profitability
(Srivastava and Kaul, 2016; Verhoef et al., 2009), business performance
(Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004), and certain marketing outcomes
such as WOM and purchase/repurchase intent (Verhoef et al., 2016).
Klaus and Maklan (2012) developed one of the first instruments that
could measure CX in more detail. Their experience quality scale mea-
sures the impact of CX on customer satisfaction, loyalty, and WOM.
Nevertheless, as groundbreaking as the EXQ scale was, it was originally
developed to measure CX within a financial service setting. While it
might sufficient for similar settings, it might not accurately capture
customer experience in other industries or channels (Lemon and
Verhoef, 2016). Kim and Choi (2013) developed a model that captures
customer experience in various industries or channels and allows for a
wider range of applications. Their CX model examines the impact of
service outcome quality, interaction quality, and peer-to-peer quality
on customer experience quality, as well as the impact that CX has on
customer loyalty. The model developed for our study is based on both
the models developed by Klaus and Maklan (2012) and Kim and Choi
(2013), with the addition of examining the impact of CX on both tra-
ditional and electronic WOM intention. (See Fig. 1.) So, we assert:
Hypothesis 4 (The Customer Experience → WOM Hypothesis). Customer
experience will have a positive influence on customer intention to share it
through traditional WOM.
Hypothesis 5 (The Customer Experience → eWOM Hypothesis). Customer
experience will have a positive influence on customer intention to share it
through electronic WOM.
2.6. Conceptual framework
The model developed for this study is based on the original CX
models proposed by Klaus and Maklan (2012) and Kim and Choi
(2013). The former authors examined the impact of product experience,
moments-of-truth, outcome focus and peace-of-mind on CX in model
that treated CX as a second-order construct and measured its impact on
consumer behavior in terms of customer satisfaction, loyalty and WOM
intention. All antecedents were found to impact CX and CX has a po-
sitive impact on consumer behavior. The latter authors proposed a
simpler model that unlike Klaus and Maklan (2012) did not treat CX as
J.R. Siqueira, et al. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870

Fig. 1. Research model.

a second-order construct but instead proposed a set of measures to as-
sess CX. They analyzed the impact of service outcome quality, inter-
action quality and P2P interaction on CX and how CX impacted cus-
tomer loyalty. Similar to the model proposed by Klaus and Maklan
(2012), all relationships were found to be significant and positive. It is
interesting to note that the only antecedents that overlapped were
outcome focus and service outcome.
We followed the rationale presented by Klaus and Maklan (2012);
their theoretical framework was grounded in the means-end-chain ap-
proach (Parasuraman et al., 2005) and accounted for measures of ser-
vice quality in different contexts, while at the same time allowing for
the exploration of the attributes and dimensions of an experience. The
application of Reynolds and Gutman’s (1988) means-end theory justifies
the connections that exist between the antecedents of an experience and
its outcomes being treated as means-end chains while at the same time
providing an ideal tool to assess customers’ evaluation of services,
products and experiences (Olson and Reynolds, 1983). In their model,
the antecedents of CX can be classified as perceptual or concrete at-
tributes that produce a second-order construct that ultimately impacts
customer behavioral intentions such as WOM. Perceptual attributes are
more abstract and experiential in nature whereas concrete attributes
tend to be of a technical nature. According to Parasuraman et al.
(2005), the technical aspects of an experience can change when tech-
nology changes, whereas perceptual attributes used to evaluate an ex-
perience tend to be less subject to change. So, technical attributes can
be judged on the basis of simply existing or not leading researchers to
advocate for the use of perceptual attributes that can be evaluated using
a scale. This led to the decision to select antecedents from both models
that were better defined by perceptual attributes.
Thus, we adopted the proposed measures for the P2P construct from
Kim and Choi (2013) and peace of mind from Klaus and Maklan (2012).
The framework was expanded through the addition of the new media
impression construct and a measure for CX avoiding the need to treat
CX as a second order construct. The impact of CX on consumer behavior
contrasted WOM and eWOM intentions. (See Fig. 1.) Ultimately, the
driver behind the model was the needs that managers have to know not
only if customers have had a positive or negative experience, but most
they exited the store and invited to participate in the survey. In order to
obtain a representative sample, we also accounted for various reasons
for customer shopping, as well as both intraday and intraweek sea-
sonality. Activities performed inside the stores by participants were also
taken into account in order to capture their behaviors in terms of
purchases, returns, exchanges, inquiries, complaints, successful or un-
successful search of a product, or whether consumers simply window-
shopped. Respondents who stated that they were simply passing
through the store but did not perform any of the activities described
above were not interviewed. The data collection process resulted in a
total of 400 questionnaires, 390 of which were usable. The sample was
mostly composed of women (57.7%). Respondents were a relatively
young population, with the majority (70.3%) ranging between 18 and
34 years of age. The complete sample description is presented in Tables
1 and 2.
3.2. Method
The survey instrument was developed from existing scales that de-
monstrated reliability and validity. It was double-back-translated by
native speakers within the framework of collaborative and iterative
translation as proposed by Douglas and Craig (2007). It is a reflection of
the comprehensive literature conducted for this study, and its content
was assessed by academic colleagues to determine the face validity of
its items. In order to account for the market characteristics of the
country investigated, the instrument was tested with 20 consumers to
ensure clarity of the instructions and that the response format fit the
context in which it was applied. All items were rated on 5-point Likert
scales, and are presented in Table 3 along with references.
To contrast the research hypotheses, we opted to conduct a quan-
titative cross-sectional study. The information was processed in several
phases. First, we applied descriptive statistics to facilitate
Table 1
Location, time and activity details.
Location Activity

importantly, what drove that result and how that affects their behavior Centro Mayor 10% Made a purchase 74.5%
afterwards. Fundamentally, the goal is to show that, within a retail Diver Plaza 7% Returned or exchanged an item 0.5%
environment, CX is a critical component to determine consumer moti- Galerias 13% Made inquiry of complaint 4.5%
vation to share experiences in the real world or online. Hayuelos 13% Sought out a product needed, but could not 1.5%
find it
Plaza Central 7% Window shopped 19.0%
3. Methodology Plaza Imperial 13%
Santafe 12% Time Period

3.1. Data collection Titan 10% Morning 33%

Unicentro 15% Afternoon 52%
Data were collected through store-intercept surveys conducted in Night 15%
Bogota, Colombia. The surveys were administered by a professional Day

marketing research company at all nine locations of the retailer

Monday–Friday 71%
Falabella, a department store chain that has been operating in the local Weekend 29%
market for over 10 years. Respondents were randomly intercepted as

5
J.R. Siqueira, et al. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870

Table 2 done through Bayesian inference (Gelman et al., 2013). A Bayesian

Sociodemographic traits. hierarchical approach (Gill, 2002), which is described in more detail in
Gender Marital Status the Appendix, allows for seamless intertwining of estimation and hy-
pothesis testing within a single step. Each question forms a random,
Male 43% Single 60% independent and identically distributed (for a given construct and in-
Female 57% Married 23%
dividual) realization from the distribution of the constructs, and the
Divorced 2%
Age Widower 1%
constructs, which are latent random variables, are potentially linked
through the hypothesized links described in Fig. 1. Questions are, thus,
18–25 45% Other 14% characteristics defining the underlying latent construct, which en-
26–34 25% compasses them through a probabilistic relationship. The responses per
35–49 20% Family Monthly Income (Colombian
individual are heterogeneous random representations of an underlying,
Pesos)
latent theme, which is then related to others through a latent re-
50–64 8% Less than 1,000,000 38% lationship. Both the key constructs and their relationships are assumed
Over 64 2% 1,000,000–2,000,000 30% to be random realizations, rather than fixed values.
2,000,001–4,000,000 24%
Estimation through Bayesian analysis involves inference on both the
Education 4,000,001–11,000,000 2%
distributions of the random constructs and their (also random) linkages
None 1% More than 11,000,001 6% – done in unison. The resulting output is the joint (posterior) distribu-
Some high school 8% tion of the latent constructs and their relationships, represented as the
High School Degree 43% Family Size multivariate uncertainty around them given the data (and any prior
Undergraduate degree 47% 1 2%
information). A natural form of testing the relationships is the assess-
Masters or doctorate 1% 2 13% ment of the amount of mass in the posterior densities of the linkage
3 28% parameters that falls on either side of zero. While in frequentist ap-
Occupation 4 35% proaches a test is needed for estimating a fixed, unknown parameter
values (often with respect to a benchmark level or threshold), in a
Working 66% 5 or more 22%
Unemployed 10% Bayesian approach the focus is on the random distribution of the
Student 24% parameter, and the potential values it may, thus, undertake upon ob-
serving the data. This is a form of uncertainty measurement, that re-
Note: Currency is presented in Colombian Pesos (1 USD = 3,295.98 COP as of veals where the parameter may be (and the associated probability/
6/06/2019). density for each value), given the data, rather than where a point es-
timate indicates it can fall in repeated experiments (frequentist inter-
characterization of the sample profile. The data was processed in SPSS, pretation).
obtaining the Cronbach alpha to measure the reliability of the instru- Oftentimes credible intervals are reported as intuitive Bayesian
ment. The approach to the analysis of the underlying relationships was

Table 3
Instrument items and reliability.
Factor Measurement Item References Cronbach α

Peace of mind (PM)
I am confident in Falabella’s expertise Klaus and Maklan (2012) 0.65
Dealing with Falabella is easy
Falabella will look after me for a long time
I stay with Falabella because of my past dealings with Falabella
I have dealt with Falabella before so getting what I needed was really easy
Falabella gives independent advice (on which product/service will best suit my needs)

New media impression (NMI)
I find it interesting to connect with this retail brand through new media (like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Khan and Rahman (2016) 0.53
etc.)
I feel good when I get any message or news through new media (like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.)
about this retail brand
Any information received through new media (like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) about this retail
brand induces my sentiments

Peer to peer interaction (P2P)
I would say that the quality of my interaction with other customers at Falabella is excellent Brady and Cronin (2001) 0.61
I believe that we get superior interactions with other customers at Falabella
I think that total contact with other customers at Falabella is excellent
I find that Falabella's other customers consistently leave me with a good impression of its service
Falabella's other customers do not affect its ability to provide me with good service

Customer experience (CX) I would say that the experience at/with Falabella is excellent Kim and Choi (2013) 0.62
I believe that we get superior experience at Falabella
I think that total experience procedure at Falabella is excellent

WOM Mention to others that you do business with Falabella Brown et al. (2005) 0.61
Make sure that others know that you do business with Falabella
Speak positively about Falabella employee(s) to others
Recommend Falabella to family members
Speak positively of Falabella to others
Recommend Falabella to acquaintances
Recommend Falabella to close personal Friends

sWOM Say positive things about the company on social sites such as Facebook? (adapted) Eisingerich et al. (2015) 0.58
Use social sites to encourage friends and relatives to buy | the company’s products? (adapted)
Recommend the company on social sites such as Facebook? (adapted)
Become a fan of the company brand pages on social sites such as Facebook? (adapted)

6
J.R. Siqueira, et al.
Table 4
Results.
Hypotheses
H1 Peace of mind → Customer experience
H2 New media impression → Customer experience
H3 Peer-to-peer interaction → Customer experience
H4 Customer experience → WOM
H5 Customer experience → eWOM
equivalents to frequentist confidence intervals, though they offer a
different interpretation, more related to the distribution of the para-
meter rather than that of the estimator (Samaniego, 2010). In parti-
cular, a posterior 95% credible interval of, for example, (0.48, 0.80)
indicates that 95% of the mass of the density for that parameter lies
within those bounds, given the data. Note that there is no normality
assumption underlying credible intervals, as the central limit theorem is
never invoked. This allows for full assessments of the probability not
only that the parameter is not positive, but also meaningful inference
about the potential level of influence, without reliance on type I-prone
hypothesis tests. For example, while a parameter may be positive, a
minimal value may be needed to be considered relevant. Inference on
the probability of the parameter having a value larger than that
threshold is a natural output of the Markov chain Monte Carlo-based
results (Gilks et al., 1995). We will follow this approach and describe
the methodology in more detail both in Section 4.2 and in the Ap-
pendix, where the full Bayesian model is described.
A key advantage of Bayesian methods over frequentist approaches is
that there is no over-reliance on large sample theory to obtain mean-
ingful results (Berger, 2013). Bayesian approaches are well-suited for
low samples, such as the one embedded in this manuscript, allowing for
simply the direct measurement/assessment of the uncertainty about the
parameter, rather than limiting arguments about a related construct
(maximum likelihood estimator). We refer the reader to Appendix A for
further description of the underlying Bayesian approach.
4. Data analysis and results
4.1. Reliability of the measurement instrument
Reliability was assessed through an analysis of Cronbach Alpha
coefficients. We analyzed internal consistency by contrasting the
average correlation of an item with all the others that compose the
scale. All coefficients were greater than 0.5, providing acceptable re-
liability as per Hernández et al. (2014). (See Table 3 again.)
4.2. Measurement model and description
The model proposed is a Bayesian (hierarchical) multinomial ordered
probit (BHMOP) model (Johnson and Albert, 1999). The Bayesian ap-
proach has multiple advantages, including: (1) non-reliance on large-
sample theory for estimation (Bayesian approaches rely on a single,
posterior distribution estimation, which accounts for the full un-
certainty in the data, including those related to lower sample sizes); (2)
flexibility to adjust missing data in a coherent, unified approach
(Gelman and Meng, 2004); and (3) interpretability of the parameters as
unknown random relationships, instead of frequentist constructs such
as MLE estimators (Winkler, 2003). Also, (4) it has been successfully
utilized in the e-trading literature (Dakduk et al., 2017). Additionally,
the Bayesian framework allows for incorporation of prior information
that may be available from similar studies in a seamless, unified fra-
mework (Winkler, 2003).
Our model approach allows for each observed measurement item to
follow an individual-specific multinomial ordered probit structure to
accommodate the Likert nature of the data. Each respondent (for each
item) is modelled independently, though derived from some unknown,
7
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870
Posterior Mean (sd) 95% C.I. Conclusion
0.078 (0.17) −0.13, 0.50 Rejected
0.027 (0.19) −0.28, 0.35 Rejected
0.683 (0.08) 0.48, 0.80 Accepted
0.429 (0.03) 0.37, 0.49 Accepted
0.246 (0.04) 0.17, 0.32 Accepted
common population of interest. The relationships between constructs,
at the population level, will be the quantities of interest. A more
technical description of the statistical components of the model can be
found in Appendix A.
4.3. Model results
The results of the model comprise the relationships between the
different constructs, as well as their relative strength. Although
Bayesian analysis provides a framework in which the full distribution of
the relationships is obtained, we follow a standard rule to define the
conclusions based on how much of the posterior distribution points to
that particular conclusion. For example, the relationship in the P2P
Interaction → Customer Experience Hypothesis (H3), expressed through
a linear relationship between latent variables, shows a posterior mean
of 0.68, with a posterior standard deviation of 0.08. This indicates that
the majority of the posterior mass lies in positive territory, indicating a
strong and clear positive association and strong evidence of the hy-
pothesis. Table 4 shows the posterior means and standard deviations, as
well as central 95% credible intervals for the parameters representing
the association between constructs (hypotheses). Conclusions are based
on whether the majority of the posterior mass for the parameter lies
away from zero (i.e., there is strong evidence of nonzero associations).
A full summary of the analyses is also provided in Appendix A.
5. Discussion and contributions
Customer experience research has examined many traditional con-
sequence constructs, such as loyalty, satisfaction, repurchase intention,
and traditional WOM. Our research aligns with most of these studies.
CX was examined within a traditional retail context, and our approach
uses some of the scales previously developed to measure CX’s ante-
cedents and consequences. Nevertheless, a new path is examined
through our proposed model, which was designed to compare customer
preferences for sharing a retail experience through traditional WOM or
sWOM after a shopping experience takes place within a real-world re-
tail setting.
Our results show that there is no clear relationship with the CX
construct between the consumer sentiment of peace-of-mind and new
media influence within the researched context; thus, the Piece of
Mind → Customer Experience (H1) and the New Media Impression →
Customer Experience Hypothesis (H2) are rejected. This was an inter-
esting finding, as previous research of CX has shown POMDD to be an
important factor for customers’ evaluations of their experiences (Klaus
and Maklan, 2012, 2013). It should be noted that the previous research
mentioned in this article was conducted within a financial services
context, thus raising the question of context importance on customer
evaluation of CX. This might be due to CX’s holistic nature, meaning the
importance of antecedents may vary depending on the context.
Given the growing participation of consumers in social networks, it
was also surprising that new media impression was found to have no
clear direct relationship with customer experience. This might be at-
tributed to consumer distrust of promotional efforts on the part of
companies, and also partially explains why the P2P Interaction →
Customer Experience Hypothesis (H3) was supported, especially since
P2P behavior can be considered an expression of WOM behavior,
J.R. Siqueira, et al.
thereby supporting the impact that WOM has on consumer experience
and decisions.
The results also show that peer-to-peer interaction is important for a
positive customer experience in the traditional retail context. As ex-
pected, indirect communication in the form of peer-to-peer interaction
can influence customers' attitudes and behavior, as well as their prior
assessment of their relationship with a provider. The results also show
how customer experience impacts traditional and electronic WOM.
Within the context of cross-channel research, this result makes a con-
tribution to our understanding of the omni-channel consumer, since
previous studies have shown that omni-channel shopping intention has
a positive direct impact on product review sharing intention (Kang,
2019). This study has found that a positive experience in a channel has
a direct impact on customer intention to share information through a
different channel (eWOM), which hopes to contribute with new
knowledge of factors that influence the cross-channel purchase deci-
sion.
The ratios indicate that customer experience influences both tradi-
tional and eWOM behavior; however, consumers seem to favor tradi-
tional WOM. The findings presented in this study suggest that, when
given a choice, traditional retail consumers opt for traditional WOM
over sWOM to share experiences related to purchase-related outcomes,
at least within the geographical and sociological boundaries of our
study. This finding was surprising given the growth and popularity of
the internet, as well as the increase of consumer familiarity with and
engagement in social networking. Despite the strong presence social
networks have on customers’ lives, traditional WOM still appears to be
the route favored by consumers to share their experiences with friends
and family. One possible explanation might be attributed to the per-
ceived social risk associated with communicating a message to the
entire social network. sWOM participants are subjected to the potential
effects of social risk to their reputations for making recommendations
on a social network. Since self-enhancement motives and social per-
ceptions impact sWOM more than traditional WOM (Eisingerich et al.,
2015), consumers might opt for the less risky option.
Eisingerich et al. (2015) found that willingness to engage in sWOM
versus WOM can be moderated by different levels of social risk asso-
ciated with the two forms of communication, and can be mitigated by
consumers' self-enhancement needs. Self-enhancement, in this case,
deals with people’s desire to present a favorable impression of them-
selves to others (Gregg et al., 2011), and is treated as a moderator for
customer engagement in sWOM and WOM. Another possible explana-
tion to the findings presented is that, due to the more permanent nature
of written messages, sWOM has a longer lifespan than WOM, including
the fact that recorded sWOM can later serve as evidence of a previous
opinion or recommendation. On the other hand, traditional WOM ty-
pically involves live, one-on-one interaction that is transmitted verb-
ally, and thus involves a substantially lower social risk to the party
sending it (Leonhardt et al., 2011). It may suffer, however, from in-
formation accuracy, as messages transmitted verbally are susceptible to
distortion as they pass from one person to another.
One key contribution of this study is the introduction a new meth-
odological framework for analyzing associations in the area of WOM.
Though not novel in the area of e-commerce (Dakduk et al., 2017), this
Bayesian approach naturally fits the nature of the problem, is scalable
and flexible through multiple levels of hierarchy, and can accommodate
non-standard data structures, such as those with missing data or low
sample sizes. Additionally, the framework allows for simple modifica-
tions to account for multiple products or regions through trivial
Appendix A
Let i be the index corresponding to each of the individuals in the sample. Index j corresponds to each of the Likert-based questions for construct
six constructs k (j = 1, …, J(k)). Index s represents each of the Likert categories (s = 1, …,5). The observed variables (data) are represented as Y, with
subindices indicating the variable construct, question, and the respondent. Latent probabilities of each of the Likert scales are represented as p, and
the latent factors are represented by Z, with latent means μ. Latent parameters linking the factors are represented as α (levels) and β (linear
8
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870
modifications of the level and structure of the hierarchical relation-
ships.
6. Conclusion
Despite growing interest on the part of practitioners and academics
in both the traditional and online retail domains, understanding of their
symbiotic relationship remains limited. Experiences lived in one do-
main can impact the way customers behave in the other, as is the case
for WOM intentions discussed in this article. The form in which these
experiences are shared with other customers is important for busi-
nesses, as it has become one of the most powerful communication
channels to engender future purchase behavior and commitment from
customers in the retail sector.
There has been a scarcity of studies accounting for both forms of
retail and which also examine consumer behavior in terms of WOM
preference. Our approach is a dedicated effort to extend the current
knowledge of eWOM in retailing by developing a model based on CX
that takes place in a traditional retail environment. Within this context,
many studies have also concluded that the possibility to engage in
positive eWOM increases dramatically after a satisfactory customer
experience, especially in the form of a service encounter (Blazevic et al.,
2013), but none of these studies addressed which form of WOM was
favored by consumers. Practitioners can take advantage of these find-
ings to support their online channels by taking into consideration its
eWOM component and developing ways to improve the overall cus-
tomer experience in order to improve eWOM intention. Marketers
should also be cognizant of the need to tailor the offered experience in
order to mitigate the impact of social medial judgments as a result of
sWOM.
As is the case with most studies of this type, there are several lim-
itations to the content presented. The first limitation is directly related
to the size of the sample studied, making it difficult to generalize its
findings. Additionally, the study was specifically conducted with a
single retailer, which makes generalizing results to other sectors a risky
proposition. Incidentally, this is the first study, to the authors’ knowl-
edge, to examine consumers’ WOM behavior in Latin America, and it
would be interesting to duplicate it in other Latin American countries
(as well as other regions) to determine if this type of behavior varies
according to cultural traits.
Another question raised by our findings, and a potential avenue for
future study, relates to how other factors can potentially influence
consumers enough to increase their intention to engage in eWOM
communications. Different scenarios should be explored in order to
develop a more holistic view. Moreover, most of the studies published
on WOM focus on positive WOM. It would be enlightening to explore
negative sWOM versus negative WOM within a similar context to the
one presented in this article. The notion of how a negative experience
could impact consumer brand aversion, and the degree to which they
would engage in negative WOM versus sWOM, could provide an in-
teresting contrast of WOM engagement intensity. Conducting a reverse
study examining both forms of WOM intention after an online purchase
experience could also be a valuable subject of study, as would ex-
amining the POMDD and NMI constructs as possible moderators of
customer experience.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
J.R. Siqueira, et al. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 37 (2019) 100870

relationships), with the latter representing the underlying relationships (hypotheses) of our study. Hidden thresholds in the multinomial re-
presentation of the problem are represented as τ. For a complete description of these types of models, see Johnson and Albert (1999).
To complete the notation, we will denote Φ as the Standard Normal cdf, MN(p) will denote the multinomial density pdf, N(m,s) will denote the
Gaussian pdf with mean m and standard deviation s, and Ga(a,b) will denote the Gamma density with parameters a and b. The model details can be
summarized as follows:
Yi, j, k ∼ MN (pi, k )

pi, k,1 = Φ(−μi, k )

pi, k, s = Φ(τk, s − μi, k ) − Φ(τk, s − 1 − μi, k ) s = 2, 3, 4

4
pi, k,5 = 1 − ∑ pi,k,s
s=1

Zi, k = N (μi, k , 1)

μi , k = α k k = 1, ⋯, 3

μi,4 = α4 + β1 Zi,4 + β2 Zi,5 + β3 Zi,6

μi,5 = α5 + β4 Zi,5

μi,6 = α6 + β5 Zi,6

βk , αk ∼ N (0, 0.001)

τi,1 ≡ 0
k
τi, k = ∑ gi,s k = 2, ⋯, 4
s=2

gi, s ∼ Ga (0.001, 0, 0.001)

The intuition behind the model can be described through the hierarchies (each of which being represented by a block of the aforementioned
equations):

(1) The model assumes that the observed Likert responses (Y) are driven by a multinomial distribution, with probability vector that is individual-
and construct-specific. This allows for heterogeneity within the responses, where individuals will offer different responses between themselves,
and also different responses to different questions.
(2) The probability vector then mapped through a standard probit approach into areas in the real line, with the surface of that area driven by
individual-specific means. We assume that the true opinions are latent and unknown (Z), while we just observe them with some error (Y).
(3) The third level comes into play when linking the associations between the unknown mean levels and the latent constructs. We assume that the
hypothesis relate the constructs at the true, latent level, rather than at the observed level. Namely, if there is an association, it will be observed
with noise.
(4) The final layer is composed by the prior densities, which we assume non-informative since we do not have prior studies on which to build any
knowledge about the relationships.

The model was run for 100,000 iterations using OPENBUGS (Lunn et al., 2012), with a burn-in of 10,000 iterations. The results shown in Table 4
correspond to the summary of the posterior distribution for the key parameters.
Interpretation of the results is direct from the joint posterior distribution of the parameters (which includes the probability distributions of the
latent constructs as well as the linkages between those constructs). The key results for validating the hypothesis lie within the estimation of the
posterior distribution of the linkages, which is represented through the beta parameters in the above representation. Note that, while prior densities
are meant to represent the available information about both latent constructs and linkages, the choices made are non-informative (flat priors),
aiming at producing results which are not dependent on (potentially subjective) prior information available (prior to the study). The results were not
sensitive to the choice of hyperpriors/hyperparameters, indicating a robust, informative output to those choices. Even though this was not explored
for the purpose of this manuscript, one key advantage of Bayesian methods is the seamless approach to combining prior and current information to
form an updated, posterior distribution of the parameters/relationships of interest. Any relevant information about some or all of the parameters, for
example coming from prior studies or the subjective knowledge of the researcher, can easily be incorporated into the process. For example, the
researcher may know the approximate location or scale of a parameter, or even its bounds or correlation with other parameters. This can be easily
incorporated as prior information to update with the data to produce the posterior results. Our choice was to remain non-informative with the priors,
which, in turn, in the limit, produces equivalent results to the frequentist approach, but, for low samples, it can differ significantly (as the central
limit theorem takes a heavy toll on frequentist approaches).

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