Sorry but no sorry: The use and effects of apologies in airline webcare responses to NeWOM messages of flight passengers

Offering an apology is a strategy brands use in response to negative electronic word of mouth. However, its effectiveness equivocal and may depend on combination with other strategies. In this paper, the offering webcare conversations between airlines complaining customers Twitter investigated. Study 1, corpus study was conducted examine whether how apologies occurred 480 conversations. most frequently used strategy. Moreover, accommodative strategies were more frequent than defensive 2, we investigated separately combined and/or The experiment had 2 (apology: present vs. absent) × (defensive strategy: (accommodative between-subjects design. Flight passengers (N = 151) assessed service failure airline’s reputation. Although presence did not enhance brand reputation, both did. We conclude that prefer as online complaints, but truly protects their