From the Archive: Consumers' Switching Behavior is Contagious
While customer satisfaction by itself doesn't necessarily up the odds of word of mouth success, incentives prompt satisfied customers to spread the word, according to Jochen Wirtz and Patricia Chew's 2002 International Journal of Service Industry Management article, titled "The Effercts of Incentives, Deal Proneness, Satisfaction, and Tie Strength on Word of Mouth Behavior."
Other findings:
* Deal-prone customers generate more word of mouth -- independent of incentives.
* Satisfied customers are a "necessary but not sufficient" component for positive word of mouth generation.
* Incentives might be an effective way to induce satisfied customers to make recommendations.
