WEBCARE KNOWLEDGE CLIPS
Week 1 – The why of webcare
1.1 Goals of webcare
Customer care solving customer problems
Public relations manage relationships
Marketing impact on brand evaluation
1.2 Proactive and reactive webcare
Proactive webcare = consumers post a message online but don’t request a response to it.
Reactive webcare = customers post a message online and explicitly ask the company to respond.
How do customers evaluate a brand when it uses proactive or reactive webcare?
The research also distinguished between two types of platforms:
Brand-generated = platform initiated by the brand.
Consumer-generated = platform initiated by consumers who post their evaluations on
different brands.
Results:
There was a difference in receiving a webcare response or not.
o Responding to NeWOM by means of webcare increases brand evaluations.
Proactive webcare caused more positive brand evaluations when used on a brand-
generated platform instead of a consumer-generated platform.
A mediation effect of CHV was found
Proactive webcare on brand-generated platforms engendered perceptions of CHV
1.3 From issue to crisis
This is about the PR function of webcare damage control
Domino pizza crisis & AirAsia crisis
Framing theory = a single issue can be regarded from multiple angles (emotional or informal)
Results:
AirAsia used an informational strategy
o They did everything in their power to protect their brand reputation.
But does this frame align with the public?
The public used both informative and emotional frames (more than informational)
o There is a mis-alignment between the company and public frames.
1.4 Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)
SCCT = what factors shape how stakeholders perceive a crisis?
It is about crisis responsibility system of assessment:
Look at the general type of crisis your organization is encountering
o Victim – very little responsibility
o Accidental – minimal responsibility
o Preventable – the company could have prevented it
A base response across all types of crisis:
Help people prevent further harm
Help people cope psychologically with the crisis
1
, Week 2 – Chatbot technology
2.1 Turing test
Can computers talk like a human? measuring artificial intelligence.
Turing test = a judge has computer mediated conversations with people and a computer. If the
computer cannot be distinguished from the humans it is considered intelligent.
Simulating a human conversation however is a lot harder than Turing initially thought.
2.2 Uncanny valley effect
Uncanny valley = the phenomenon when a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot looks
almost identical to a human being and this arouses a sense of unease in the person viewing it.
Week 3 – Elements of tone of voice
3.1 Creating human-like chatbots
According to the CASA-paradigm, computers are perceived as social actors, so we as humans
behave similar to computers as we do to other humans.
Which linguistic elements can you use in your communication?
Personalization of the message
Using informal language in your message
Using invitational rhetoric (e.g. showing empathy, using humour, etc.)
Social presence is based on two different factors:
The idea of synchroneity (immediacy) = there is a natural time between sending a
message and receiving an answer
Intimacy = to what extent you have the feeling that you are communicating with another
person, based on the used cues.
If you are not familiar with a brand, it is less appropriate to use CHV, if you are familiar it is
appropriate to use CHV.
If the CASA-paradigm is true, the study would have found the same effects as other studies. They
partly did:
Human-like chatbot created the effect of social presence and this positively effected
brand attitude.
Human-like chatbots were perceived as warmer than machine-like chatbots.
Using informal language had no effect on the appropriateness or inappropriateness.
The CASA-paradigm, anthropomorphism and social presence are partly similar to the
webcare context, but also people behave differently in the chatbot context.
The idea of role theory was not fully supported in this research.
3.2 Humanizing a response
There are two ways to humanize a response:
Use visuals (avatar)
Use linguistic elements (words)
o Personalization (e.g. usage of I, greeting with name, using personal information)
o Informal language (e.g. using shortenings, non-verbal cues, interjections)
o Invitational rhetoric (e.g. express apology, show empathy, say thank you, showing
dialogue, using humour)
2
Week 1 – The why of webcare
1.1 Goals of webcare
Customer care solving customer problems
Public relations manage relationships
Marketing impact on brand evaluation
1.2 Proactive and reactive webcare
Proactive webcare = consumers post a message online but don’t request a response to it.
Reactive webcare = customers post a message online and explicitly ask the company to respond.
How do customers evaluate a brand when it uses proactive or reactive webcare?
The research also distinguished between two types of platforms:
Brand-generated = platform initiated by the brand.
Consumer-generated = platform initiated by consumers who post their evaluations on
different brands.
Results:
There was a difference in receiving a webcare response or not.
o Responding to NeWOM by means of webcare increases brand evaluations.
Proactive webcare caused more positive brand evaluations when used on a brand-
generated platform instead of a consumer-generated platform.
A mediation effect of CHV was found
Proactive webcare on brand-generated platforms engendered perceptions of CHV
1.3 From issue to crisis
This is about the PR function of webcare damage control
Domino pizza crisis & AirAsia crisis
Framing theory = a single issue can be regarded from multiple angles (emotional or informal)
Results:
AirAsia used an informational strategy
o They did everything in their power to protect their brand reputation.
But does this frame align with the public?
The public used both informative and emotional frames (more than informational)
o There is a mis-alignment between the company and public frames.
1.4 Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)
SCCT = what factors shape how stakeholders perceive a crisis?
It is about crisis responsibility system of assessment:
Look at the general type of crisis your organization is encountering
o Victim – very little responsibility
o Accidental – minimal responsibility
o Preventable – the company could have prevented it
A base response across all types of crisis:
Help people prevent further harm
Help people cope psychologically with the crisis
1
, Week 2 – Chatbot technology
2.1 Turing test
Can computers talk like a human? measuring artificial intelligence.
Turing test = a judge has computer mediated conversations with people and a computer. If the
computer cannot be distinguished from the humans it is considered intelligent.
Simulating a human conversation however is a lot harder than Turing initially thought.
2.2 Uncanny valley effect
Uncanny valley = the phenomenon when a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot looks
almost identical to a human being and this arouses a sense of unease in the person viewing it.
Week 3 – Elements of tone of voice
3.1 Creating human-like chatbots
According to the CASA-paradigm, computers are perceived as social actors, so we as humans
behave similar to computers as we do to other humans.
Which linguistic elements can you use in your communication?
Personalization of the message
Using informal language in your message
Using invitational rhetoric (e.g. showing empathy, using humour, etc.)
Social presence is based on two different factors:
The idea of synchroneity (immediacy) = there is a natural time between sending a
message and receiving an answer
Intimacy = to what extent you have the feeling that you are communicating with another
person, based on the used cues.
If you are not familiar with a brand, it is less appropriate to use CHV, if you are familiar it is
appropriate to use CHV.
If the CASA-paradigm is true, the study would have found the same effects as other studies. They
partly did:
Human-like chatbot created the effect of social presence and this positively effected
brand attitude.
Human-like chatbots were perceived as warmer than machine-like chatbots.
Using informal language had no effect on the appropriateness or inappropriateness.
The CASA-paradigm, anthropomorphism and social presence are partly similar to the
webcare context, but also people behave differently in the chatbot context.
The idea of role theory was not fully supported in this research.
3.2 Humanizing a response
There are two ways to humanize a response:
Use visuals (avatar)
Use linguistic elements (words)
o Personalization (e.g. usage of I, greeting with name, using personal information)
o Informal language (e.g. using shortenings, non-verbal cues, interjections)
o Invitational rhetoric (e.g. express apology, show empathy, say thank you, showing
dialogue, using humour)
2
