Following a service failure, dissatisfied customers increasingly turn to brands’ social media outlets (e.g., Facebook brand page) to share their complaint with the involved company and other consumers. The majority of these other consumers (i.e., ‘recovery bystanders’) chooses to remain passive by simply observing the negative comment and the company’s attempt to restore the customer-brand relationship in public by means of ‘webcare’ (i.e., marketers’ communicative responses to online complaints (MIW); van Noort & Willemsen, 2011). For these observers the online service recovery process conveys valuable information for making purchase decisions. On the other hand, some consumers choose to become active, for instance, by making comments on the complaint or the company’s response and/or by ‘liking’ a comment (i.e., positive (brand-supportive) and negative (brand-unsupportive) ‘interactive virtual presence’ (IVP)). Given this interactive environment, recovery bystanders are exposed to strong social influence. Although recent research made some progress (e.g., Weitzl & Hutzinger, 2017), knowledge about the impact of this complex, social environment on recovery bystanders’ brand-related reactions remains scarce. In this study, we suggest that recovery bystanders’ level of susceptibility to normative influence (SNI) moderates the effect of different forms of webcare responses – accompanied by positive/negative IVP – on brand image. In 3 experiments (n = 1,387 consumers) we systematically manipulate response sources (i.e. ‘advocate-initiated webcare’ (AIW) vs. ‘marketer-initiated webcare’ (MIW)) and response types (study 1); interactive virtual presence via comments (positive IVP and negative IVP) (study 2) and Facebook ‘likes’ (positive IVP) (study 3). In explaining bystanders’ post-recovery evaluation of brand image we show that: Low-SNI bystanders, receiving AIW, as compared to MIW, show – regardless of webcare’s content – a significant increase. High-SNI bystanders, receiving AIW in the form of ‘vouching’ (i.e. an advocate counters a complaint with a ‘brand love story’) has the most pronounced effect – adding positive IVP (with additional, positive brand comments) even leads to a further improvement. However, adding negative IVP (with unfavorable brand comments) to marketer’s vouching reduced high-SNI bystanders’ image evaluation. Finally, when high-SNI bystanders receive advocate’s vouching and highly positive IVP (i.e., many ‘likes’), brand image evaluations significantly increase. This research draws scholars’ and practitioners’ attention to the opportunities – and perils – of cocreated service recoveries via social media.

able to articulate their unfavorable opinions about products, brands and companies by posting complaints on a diverse set of platforms including the firms’ own Facebook brand pages. Such actions enable dissatisfied consumers to disseminate their negative sentiments among a broad audience of negative electronic word-of-mouth (NeWOM) observers (Hong & Lee, 2005). For those observers, negative consumer comments are a valuable source (Lee & Song, 2010). They usually read the NeWOM messages to identify the responsible party and to know what has caused other persons’ problems. This information, in turn, is likely to influence the potential customer’s own attitudes towards the company (e.g., Vermeulen & Seegers, 2009; Willemsen et al., 2011). Such inferences can have critical consequences for a company’s economic well-being. This study investigates how companies can counteract potential threats by means of corporate webcare (i.e., applying appropriate response strategies to counteract latent NeWOM effects). Previous studies focusing on the offline service management context have examined different types of corporate response strategies (e.g., Benoit, 1995; Coombs, 1999). Marcus and Goodman (1991), for instance, classify response strategies into either accommodative (i.e., the company accepts the failure and takes on responsibility for it) or defensive strategies (i.e., the company denies the responsibility for the negative event, attacks the accuser, or shifts the blame to others). In addition, no-action strategies are very popular among companies on the social web (Einwiller & Steilen, 2015; i.e., the company remains silent, makes only meaningless comments or takes no overt action). Furthermore, eWOM literature provides some evidence that consumers are more likely to listen to those who are not affiliated with the company (e.g., Colliander & Dahlén, 2011). On social media platforms, these brand advocates then defend a company from attacks by other consumers. The study at hand investigates the observer-related effects of multiple corporate- and consumer-response styles. More specifically, a one-factor between-subjects design (n = 728) manipulated different responses to a negative comment on a service failure publicized on a corporate Facebook fan page. Findings provide evidence that particularly accommodative online complaint handling can mitigate NeWOM effects and trigger favorable brand attitudes of NeWOM observers. Among alternative webcare strategies, empathetic communication including the acceptance of the failure and a simple public apology is an effective way to respond to negative Facebook comments. However, particularly responses including also an explanation as well as some kind of compensation can turn potential customers in actual customers of the brand. Findings further suggest that companies should perform their own webcare as defensive responses from brand advocates do not always leave a good impression. From a practical perspective, companies should consider webcare as a means not only to help current customers with their problems, but also to provide an outward-directed cue for the company’s customer-orientation.