Hotel community discourse assignment mau 5

Discourse,C o n t e x t a n d M e d i a 6 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 4 –64

Contentslistsavail ableatScienceDirect

Discourse,C o n t e x t a n d M e d i a
locate/dcm

Hotels'r esp onse s t o o n l i n er e v ie w s : M a na g
i n g consumerdissatisfact ion
YiZ h a n g , C a m i l l a V á s q u e z n
UniversityofSouthFlorida, 4202E.FowlerAvenue,CPR419,Tampa,FL33620,UnitedStates

AR T IC L EI NF O
Articlehistory:
Received4March2014Recei
vedin r e v i se d for m15July
2 014
Accepted24 A u g u st 2 0 14
Availableo n l i n e 1 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4
Keywords:
OnlinecomplaintsTripAdvis
orhotelreviewsElectronic
wordofmouthReputationmana
gementBusinessC M C
Moveanalysis

ABSTRACT
In this study we investigate the generic structure of hotel responses to customer complaints posted
onpopular travel website,TripAdvisor. Extending the genre analytic notion of rhetorical moves
(Swales,1981, 2004) to this computer-mediated text type, we analyzed 80 hotel replies that were
posted

inresponsetoonlineconsumercomplaints.Ouranalysisof
theresponsesof4-and5starhotelslocatedin4popularurbantouristdestinationsinChinaindicatesthattenmovetypesarecommonlyfoundinthisgenre,witheight
oftheseappearinginthemajority
ofreviews.
Theseresults
suggest
that
onlineresponsesfrombusinessesreplyingtousergeneratedreviewstendtobehighlyformulaicandconventionalized, with thanking and apologizing
among the most common moves identified. However,we also found considerable variation with
respect
to
how
specific
hotels
were
about
addressing
theproblem(s)discussedintheoriginalcustomercomplaint,aswellastheextenttowhichhotelmanagement
indicated having takenactionsto correct those
problems.
Finally, our
study
found
thatinthissetofresponses,hotelpersonneltendedtoemphasizeacorporate(ratherthanpersonal)identitywhenco
nstructingresponsestocomplaints.Thestudy'sfindingsprovideinsightsintosomeof
thewaysinwhichbu si nes se sa re managing consumer dissatisfac tionon l i ne .
&2014E l s e v i e r L t d . A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d .

1. Introduction
Theinternethasdramaticallychangedourwaysofcommunicating,distributing,and accessinginformationrelated to consumerdecision-making.Withinthelastdecade,theadventofWeb

2.0 and the diffusion of social media have meant a shift from
a“top-down”business-to-consumer marketing paradigm to
a“peer-to-peer”(P2P) process of information construction and
distribu-tion (O'Connor, 2008). One of the most pervasive
examples of thisshift are the billions of free and publiclyaccessible
online
reviewsofproductsandservices,knowncollectivelyas“eWOM,”orel
ectronicwordofmouth.Unliketraditionalwordof mouth,eWOM is
far less circumscribed with respect to social, geographicand
temporal factors. In fact, the immediacy and global reach
ofonlineopinionsisunprecedented.Theexplosionof
eWOM
hasalsomeantthattheprovisionofinformationaboutgoodsandservic
es has shifted from experts (for example, professional
travelwriters, writing for specialized book series or magazines) to
thehandsof“nonspecialist”userswhoparticipateinavarietyofactivities.

As might be expected, this form of online peer-to-peer information has given rise to a related genre: online responses
frombusiness. Such responses are sometimes referred to
as“customercare,”
“webcare,”
“onlinereputationmanagement”and–whenresponding to negative
comments–are part of a process known as“service recovery.”Both
online
consumer
reviews
and
businesses'responsestothosereviewsrepresentrelativelynewgenre
sofcomputermediatedcommunication(CMC),whichareintertextually connected; online reviews and responses to those
reviewscanthereforebeconsideredpartofthesame“genre

chain”(Swales, 2004). Since businesses' responses to online
reviews havenotyetbeenstudiedfromadiscourseperspective,inthepresentstudy we
extend
the
analytical
framework
of
genre/move
analysistothisspecificcomputer-mediatedtexttype,inordertogaininsightintosomeofthecommonrhetoricalstrateg
iesusedbybusinessestomanageconsumerdissatisfactioninanonline
environment.Specifically, we examine the most frequent movesfound in
a dataset of 80 posts from hotels responding to
consumerreviewso n Trip Advi so r.
1.1. Electronicwordofmouth(eWOM)andtravel

nCor respo nding

a u t h o r . T e l . : ỵ 18139742548.
E-maila d d r e s s : c v a s q u e z @ u s f . e d u ( C . V á s q u e z ) .

/>2211-6958/&2014ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved.

Numerousstudieshaveattestedtotheimpactthatonlinereviewsh
aveonconsumer spendingandbusinesses'sales(Jansen,


Y.Zh an g, C .V á sq u e z /D i s c o u r s e , C o n t e x tan dM e d i a6 (2 01 4) 5 4 –
64

2010;GhoseandIpeirotis,2011).Thesestudiesspeaknotonlytothemasse

sofpeopleengagingwithandutilizingagenrewhichisrelativelyrecent,butalso
to the very real economic impact andmaterialconsequences ofthis genre.As
onepopularmarketingwriter explains,“Under the old rules if you
upset a customer, wewere all told to expect that they would tell
seven of their friends”;in contrast, one upset customer
today“could potentially impactyour business negatively in front
of hundreds or even thousands ofprospects”(Cockrum, 2011, p. 2).
For
this
reason,
many
businessesareexperimentingwithvariousoptionsforonlinereputatio
nmanagement. The purpose of the present study is to identify
themost common generic features of one type of online
reputationmanagement:businesses'responsestonegativeonline
reviews.
Likeotherformsofsocialmedia,onlineconsumerreviewsca
n
becharacterizedasparticipatory,collaborative,usergenerated,dynam
ic and rich in information. Online reviews are believed to beespecially valuable when it comes to
providing
information
aboutsubjectively-experienced
intangible
or“experience”goods,
such
asrestaurantvisitsandhotelstays(incontrastto“searchgoods,”which
are tangible objects, such as appliances or electronics, andfor which more
objective product descriptions are often consid-eredto be
adequate sources of information). In addition, onlinereviews have

become particularly important for businesses whichdeal
with“high risk”and costly services, such as those associatedwith
leisure travel. In a study conducted byGretzel et al. (2007)they
found that nearly half of the travelers surveyed indicated
thattheyusedconsumergeneratedcontentintheirtravelplanningproc
ess.Oneofthemostpopularforumsforthistypeoftravelinformationis Tr i pA dvi s o r .
TripAdvisorc u r r e n t l y e n j o y s ar e p u t a t i o n a s o n e o f t h
emost
successful websites dedicated totravel, providing travelers
withinformation on trip and hotel booking, travel planning, as
well asreviewsofvariousbusinesses andfacilities.TripAdvisorplays
adominantroleintheonlinetravelmarketandhascontinuedtogrowin
popularitysinceitsinceptionin2000(Law, 2006). At present,the site claims to
have over 260 million unique monthly visitors,and over 150
million reviews and opinionscovering more than 3.7million
accommodations, restaurantsand attractions (TripAdvisor,n.d.).
Though the site is clearly multi-functionalin nature, one of itsmajor
functions is providing user-generated content on travelrelatedinformation, including reviewsof hotel experiences. Besides
allowingconsumers to post their reviews of hotels,TripAdvisoralso
provides aspace for hotel management to respond to each review
(althoughhotelrepresentativescannotremoveoreditexistingreviews).
Asmight beexpected,mosto f theexistingresearchon
TripAdvisorcomesfromthefieldsofhospitalityandtourismstudies(e.
g.,Briggsetal.,2007;ChungandBuhalis,2008;Cunninghametal.,2010;Ekizetal.,
2012;Miguénsetal.,2008;O'Connor, 2008, 2010; Ricci and Wietsma, 2006;
Tuominen, 2011;Whitehead, 2011) and has explored relationships
between reviewcontent and other measures of hotel quality. More
recent researchin this area has been concerned with creating
automated systemsfor detecting deceptive reviews (e.g.,Ott et al.,
2011; Wu et al.,2010; Yoo and Gretzel, 2009). And still other

authors
have
taken
adiscourseanalyticperspectivetothestudyofonlinetravelreviews,incl
udingVásquez(2011,2013)whoinvestigatedthediscourse
pragmatic features of a sample of 100“Rant”(negative)hotel
reviews, as well as the narrativity and involvement in thesame set
of reviews,
andTian (2013), who explored patterns
ofengagementinasampleofChineseandEnglishhotelreviews.Howev
er, hotels' responses to online reviews have not yet beenstudied
from a discourse perspective. In order to offer a prelimin-ary
description of this text type, and to provide a foundation forfuture
research on this important form of online business communication, we conducted a top-down analysis of the
rhetoricalmovesth a t are mo st ty p i c a l o f t h i s g e n r e .

5

1.2. Hotelresponsestoreviews
AseWOMcontinuestoexpandandtomakeanimpactonconsumerd
ecision-makingandspending,moreandmorebusi-nessesaretakingnote,and
are
realizing
that
it
is
important
toengageinonlinereputationmanagement(O'Connor,2010;Vásquez,
2014). This represents a nascent area of inquiry (VanNoort and
Willemsen, 2011), and few, if any, studies have beenconducted

specifically on businesses responses to online reviews.However
some preliminary data about hotel responses to reviewsare
available.
For
example,Vásquez
(2014)observed
that
whilehotelresponseswereinfrequentonTripAdvisor,inreviewssam
pled in 2008 (only 1%), this proportion had risen to over
10%inreviewssampledjustafewyearslater.Similarly,in2010,O'Con
norfoundthatapproximately10%oftheTripAdvisorreviewsin his sample
includedaresponsefromthehotel.Andinastudyfrom 2011 (cited inSparks et al.,
2013),
researchers
found
that
7%ofh o t e l s r e s p o n d e d t o o n l i n e r e v i e w s . T h e r e f o r e , t h e r
e s e e m s t o be a trend of more and more hotels exploiting the affordances
oftheonline“right-ofreply”spaces(HeyesandKapur,2012)providedbyreview sitessu
ch asTri pAdvis o r.
1.3. Genre,genrechainsandintertextuality
Thenotionofgenreencompassesbothtexttypeandsocialaction(S
wales,1990).Hotelrepresentatives,inrespondingtoonline
consumer reviews, are not only participating in a form ofsocial
action that entails a specific, goal-oriented activity, but theyare
also producing online texts which are potentially viewable by avast
and indeterminate audience. Among the goals of these textsare to publicly
acknowledge–and in some cases, to validate, orrepudiate–
acustomer'sremarksrelatedtonegativeand/orpositive aspects of
their

experience.
Repairing
or
maintaining
thebusiness'srelationshipwith the customer may be another
goal.And considering that the audience of readers of these texts
can
bemuchwiderthanjusttheoriginalaggrievedcustomer,onlinereputa
tionmanagementrepresentsyetanotherimportantgoal.Therelations
hipbetweengenre,communicativepurpose,andrhetorical
moves
can be understood in the following manner:“a given
communicative
purpose
triggers
a
particular
genre,
whichisrealizedby
aspecificmovestructureorfunctionallydistinctstages along with
the genre unfolds. The move structure, in turn, isrealized by rhetorical
strategies or formal choices of content andstyle”(Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and
Lorenzo-Dus,
2013,
p.
13).
Oneaimo f t h e p r e s e n t s t u d y i s t o d e s c r i b e t h i s g e n r e , b y i d
e n t i f y i n g the moves, orstages, which are most characteristic of businesses'responses
to reviews. Thesefindings may help business communicationeducatorsandpractitionerstobetterunderstandtheconstitu
entf u n c t i o n a l u n i t s o f t h i s r e l a t i v e l y n ew genreo f C M C .

Althought h e l a s t f e w y e a r s h a v e s e e n a n i n c r e a s e i n t h e
number of studies exploring various discourse features characteristic of the genre of online consumer reviews (Mackiewicz,
2008,2010a, 2010b; Pollach, 2006; Skalicky, 2013; Tian, 2013;
Vásquez,2011, 2013, 2014): we have not identified any studies
which haveexamined any of the discourse features of the closely
related genreof businesses' responses to online reviews. As mentioned
earlier,onlineconsumerreviewsandbusinesses'responsestothoserevi
ewsc a n b e r e g a r d e d a s b e l o n g i n g t o t h e s a m e “ genrec h a i n . ”
AsmediaresearchersGarcés-ConejosBlitvichandLorenzoDus(2013)explain,genrechainsconsistof“genresthatarelinkedtoge
therandhaveatransformativeinfluenceononeanother”(2013, p.
15). Businesses' responses to online reviews represent
agenre that is reactive to–and consequently, textually
dependentupon–theconsumerreviewswhichprecedethem.Yetit
isunclear how explicitly theseintertextualconnections
are


5

Y.Zhang, C .V ás qu e z /D i s c o u r s e , C o n t e xt an dM e di a6 ( 20 1 4 ) 54 –

64
markedinthetexts.Inordertobetterunderstandhowdetailedbusin
esses


are, when attending to specific issues mentioned in the
originalcustomerreviews,anotheraimofthepresentstudywastoinve
stigatetheextenttowhichhotels'responsesreferbackintertextuallyt
oth eo rig i na l c o n s u m e r p o s t .

functional components, as basic elements
[…]canbetaughttoa
novicewriterofa
genre”(p.313,emphasisours).

of

a genre
particular

1.5. Genreanalysisandmoves
1.4. “Conversational/humanv o i c e ”
Not surprisingly, how businesses use the internet to communicate with customers has been of great interest to scholars in
thefieldofpublicrelations.Publicrelationsexpertspointoutthatcomm
unicatingthrough digitalmedia offers businessesthe oppor-tunity to interactwith consumers via
a“humanized”or“conversa-tional voice.”In public relations
research,“conversational
humanvoice”isoftenconsideredtobeoneeffectivecharacteristicinre
sponses to crisis, as well as to the management of an organization's reputation–especially when that organization has been
thetarget of“negative word of mouth”(Schultz et al., 2011). Of
course,online reputation management extends to many modes of communication,suchasmessagespostedonTwitterorFacebook,announc
ementsmadeoncorporate
blogs,
as
well
as
responsestoonlinereviews.Typically,scholarshipinpublicrelationsa
pproaches“ conversationalh u m a n v o i c e ”asa s e t o f d i s p o s i t i o n
s

–s u c h
a s treatingo t h e r s as
human,
being
opent o d i a l o g ,
welcoming conversational communication, and providing
promptfeedback (e.g.,Kelleher and Miller, 2006; Sweetser and
Metzgar,2007). However, one communication scholar has recently
pointedout that research in this area tends to overlook the
constitutiveroleofdiscourseinsuchtexts,arguingthatmoststudiesof
corporatecommunication“donotfullyconsidertheroleoflanguagea
nditsstrategicuseasacriticalpartofrelationshipmanagement
and
image
restoration
practices,
nor
do
they
subjectthisaspectofdigitalbusinessdiscoursetorigorousanalysis”(
Creelman,2 0 1 4 ).T h e r e f o r e , a t h i r d g o a l o f t h e p r e s e n t s t u d
y i s toconsider“conversationalhumanvoice”intermsofa
fewobviouslinguisticfeatures:propernamesandfirst-personpronouns.Intheserespects,wehopethatourdiscoursecenteredapproachcancomplementresearchfromthepreviouslymen
-tionedfieldssuchasbusinesscommunication,
public
relations,andso c ia l m e d i a m a n a ge me n t .
Oneimportantaspectofbusinesses'responsestoonline
reviewsistheirverypublicnature.
Just
as

the
affordances
ofnewmediaenableonlinecustomercomplaintstobereadbythousan
ds of other readers, businesses responses posted onlinemay be
addressed to a specific aggrieved customer, but they tooare
available to be read by a much wider public. In fact, the
impactofthesetextson“overhearers,”orobservers,maybequitesignificant.Creelman
(2014)explains
that
the
high
stakes
associatedwiththesetextsmeansthattheirconstructionmaybechallengin
gfortherepresentativesresponsibleforproducingthem.
Inthefaceofcustomerdissatisfaction,businessesarenowthrust
into
the
awkward
social
situation
of
publicly
respondingtonegativefeedback,wheretheirresponsetoanindivi
dualcustomer is weighed and scrutinized, not only by the immedi-ate
correspondent but also by a community of consumers
andpotentialrespondents.Thisheightenedscrutinyplacestheco
mpanyrepresentativeswhorespondto
thesepostsunderconsiderable pressure as they publicly
negotiate not only theimmediate exchange at hand but also
corporate

identity,
brandreputation,cu s to m erre l at io ns , l o ya l ty ,a nd trust.
The pressure facing authors of these texts, as described
above,suggeststhatthisisagenrethatshouldperhapsbetaughtexplici
tlytostudentsofbusinessandbusinesscommunication.

Genreanalysisinvolvesthestudyofdiscoursestructuresoftexts as
wellasoftheinteractionsbetweentextsandmembersofthe discourse communities
who produce and consume those texts(e.g.,Martin, 1985; Bhatia,
2002; Swales, 2004). The present studybegins with the notion
of“moves,”originally formulated by JohnSwales (1981)to describe
the
generic
structure
of
the
researcharticle.Adaptedforthedescriptionandanalysisofother
texttypes, the analysis of moves has been a productive approach
tounderstanding the rhetorical structure of various genres
(Swales,1990;Connor,1996;Martin,2003).Moveanalysishasbeende
scribed as a top down approach to analyzing texts representa-tive
of a particular genre. AsBiber and Conrad (2009)explain,
inthisapproach“thetextisdescribedasasequenceof‘moves,’where
each move represents a stretch of text serving a
particularcommunicativefunction”(p.
15).Theygoontoexplainthat
amoveanalysisisoftenconductedusingasmallcorpus,oracollection
of texts that are representative of a specific genre.
Forexample,Biberetal.(2007)carriedoutamoveanalysisofonetypeof
philanthropic

discourse:
fundraising
letters.
Building
on
theirearlierresearch(Upton,2002;ConnorandUpton,2003),theautho
rs analyzed a corpus of fundraising documents (which
wereproducedbymanydifferentorganizations)andidentified
thesevenmo veswh ic hoccurredthroughout theirdata(Table1
).
Basedo n t h e i r a n a l y s i s , t h e a u t h o r s w e r e a b l e t o e s t a b l i
sha
prototype of the genre and to discover the most frequent
movetypeswh ic h re flectth e ma ins t rat egi es u se d by fu ndraise
rs .
The present study takes a similar analytic approach to
describebusinessresponsesfoundintheonline“right-ofreply”spaces(Heyes and Kapur, 2012) that are located on online
review sites,which provide businesses with the opportunity to
publicly reply tonegative (or positive) reviews. Because this text type has not yetbeen
described from a discourse perspective, the primary aim
ofourstudywastoidentifyitsgenericfeatures.Following
priorgenreanalyticresearch(e.g.,Bhatia,1993;DosSantos2002;Flow
erdewandWan,2006; Swales, 1990, 2004), we analyzedthe data
in order to identify distinct moves which appear in
hotels'responsestonegativereviewspostedbyconsumersonTripAdvisor.
Adopting
a
move
structure
analysis

allowed
us
to
indentify
somecommonstrategiesusedbyhotelsinmanagingtheironlinereputa
tions. A top-down move analysis also seemed most appro-priate
for
examininglanguage
use
in
terms
of
its
communicative,orrhetorical,functions.Furthermore,whereasprevi
ousgenreanalysesofbusinessdiscoursehaveexaminedmoretraditio
nalmodesofwrittencommunication–
e.g.,lettersofapplication(Bhatia, 1993), letters of negotiation (Dos
Santos,
2002),
and
taxcomputationletters(FlowerdewandWan,2006)–
ourstudyextends this analytic framework to a newer genre of
computer-mediatedbus in ess d i s c o u r s e .
Next,a s
wehave
d i s c u s s e d above,
onlinec o n s u m e r reviews
and businesses' responses to those reviews belong to the
samegenrech ain. G ive nt h at bus in e ss e s' r es p o n s e s are , i nso
me se n se ,

Table1
Moves t r u c t u r e o f f u n d r a i s i n g l e t t e r s ( Bibere t a l . , 2 0 0 7 ,p . 5 2 ) .
MoveType1
MoveT y p e 2

Getattention


Introducet h e ca us e a n d / o r e s ta b l i s h c r e d e n t i a l s o f o r g . MoveT y p e 3
Solicitre s p on s e

Fortunately,asUptonandConnor(2001)haveargued,“‘moves’or

MoveT y p e 4
MoveT y p e 5
MoveT y p e 6
MoveT y p e 7

Offeri n c e n t i v e s
Referencei n s e r t
Expressg r a t i t u d e
Concludew i t h p l e a s a n t r i e s


intertextually dependent on the consumer reviews which
precedethem(i.e., without onlineconsumerreviews, thegenre of
businesses'responsestothosereviewswouldnotexist),wealsowanted to
determine
the
extent

to
which
responses
referred
backtospecifici n f o r ma ti o n m e n t i o n e d i n t h e r e v ie w. Th is wo
u l d h e l pus determine the degree to which businesses' responses
attendedtothes pec i ficissue sr ai s e d int h e o rigin al rev iews .
Finally, taking up the issue of“human voice”or“personalization”of business communication, we examined the use of
personalpronounsand signature linesto determine the extent to
whichauthors of such responses established a personal versus a
corpo-rate identity in this genre of computer mediated
communication(CMC).Although“conversationalhumanvoice”asiti
sused
inother disciplines has not been operationalized in
linguistic
terms,weproposethatfirstpersonsingularpronouns,andselfidentifying by means of a given and/or family name, are
amongthe most obvious linguistic resources that can be used to
convey a“humanv o i ce ”ina co m p u t e r - m e d i a t e d c o n t e x t .
Thepresentstudyaddressedthefollowingresearchquestion
s:
(1) What are the most common moves in hotel responses to
onlinenegativereviews?
(2)Towhatextentdohotelresponsesreferbacktospecificdetail sfoun
dintheoriginal consumercomplaints?
(3) What are the most common self-identification practices
foundinthesehotelresponses?Thisapproachallowedusto
identifybothpatternsofsimilarityandvariationamongindividualresp
onses. It is our hope that this study also provides a basis forfuture
research to explore the linguistic realizations of each
moveingre ate r d etail .

to the next most highly-ranked (4–5 star) hotel in that city, and
wefollowed the same sampling procedure, until we saved two
morehotelresponses.Wedidthisuntilwehadatotalof100hotelresponses,
which
corresponded
to
100
unique
consumer
reviews.Ourprocessprovidedaformofsemirandomization,andalsoallowedustoseewhetheroneormorehotelre
presentativesresponded to different consumer reviews about a
single property.In addition, we were able to notice trends in
response behavior formultiple hotel properties belonging to the same hotel chain,
butlocated in different Chinese cities–a point which we will return
toagainneart h een d o f t h i s a rt ic l e .
Ultimately,100h ote l r es p o ns e s t o con sumerr e v ie ws were
downloadedandsaved.However,20ofthesereviews
werewritteninlanguages other than English (i.e., 19 in Chinese
and1 in Spanish). These reviews were excluded from the analysis
tokeepthevariableoflanguageconsistentacrosstexts.Thefinaldataset
consistsof80hotelresponsestoreviews(Table 2), with atotalof9 4 05w o r d s .
The average word count for hotel responses is 118 words,
withthe shortest response comprised of only 27 words, and
longestresponse comprised of 471 words. In the following
discussion,
allexamplesarepresentedwiththeiroriginalspellings;howeverspeci
fic hotel and author names havebeen anonymized,due
toethicalco ns id era tio n s .
For our analytic procedures, we followed prior genre

analyticresearch,andweusedBiberetal.'s(2007)studyasamodel.Rea
ding through our data several times, we labeled each sentence,or
clausal unit, according to its primary communicative
function.Thiswasaninductiveprocess,andinvolvedseveraliterative
roundsofrefiningandreducing
ourlabels,untilweeventuallyidentifiedthetenmajormovetypesthat
wediscussinthefollowingsectio n.

2. Methods

3. Resultsanddiscussion

Ino r d e r t o a n a l y z e a n d d e s c r i b e t h e m o v e s w h i c h a p
p e a r i n this type of discourse, a total of 80 responses from hotels
werecollectedandanalyzed.BecauseTripAdvisorfeaturesover150mil
lionreviews,itwasnecessarytodelimitoursample. As aresult, we
chose to focus on hotels from a single country, just asseveral
other studies ofTripAdvisorhave done (e.g.,Au et al.,
2009;Briggsetal.,2007).WeselectedChinabecauseitisa countrywhich
is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of internationaltourism,duetorecentpoliticalandeconomicchanges.Hotels'
responses posted onTripAdvisor–following up on custo-mer
complaints posted to the same site during the time period ofJulySeptember 2013–were sampled from reviews of hotels
fromfourmajor tourist cities in China: Xi'an, Hangzhou, Nanjing,
andChongqing. These four Chinese cities were selected on the
basis ofregional diversity, because they represent popular tourist
destina-tions,and because they offer a selection of both chain and
localhotels.1Afteraninitialscanofhotelclassesandresponses,itbeca
me apparent that most lower-category hotels in these
citiesdidnotprovideresponsestocustomerreviewsonTripAdvisor.Th
erefore, to narrow the sample further, only responses from 4

to5st arhotelswe reconsideredfo r th es tu d y.
TheautomatedsortingsystemprovidedbyTripAdvisorwas
used to select the most frequently-reviewed hotels in each of
thefour cities. Starting with the most highly-ranked 4–5 star hotel
ineach city, the top“terrible”(1 star) or“poor”(2 star) reviews
wereidentified,andwerethenscanneduntilahotelresponse
wasfound. Thisfirst response from a hotel to a negative review
wassaved(alongwiththeoriginalconsumerreviewthatitcorresponded to), and this process was repeated for the third
responsefromthesamehoteltoanegativereview.Afterthat,weproc
eeded

In this section, we present the move types that appear
mostfrequently in the 80 hotel responses. We discuss the
frequenciesandfunctionsofeachmove,alongwiththeirtypical
locationwithintheresponsetext.Wealsopresentourfindingsaboutva
ryingdegreesofintertextuality(alongwithgeneralversusspecific
responses) as well as about“conversational human voice,”or
authors' discursive constructions of personal versus
corporateidentities.
3.1. Movesinhotelresponses
Informed
by
earlier
genreanalyticstudies,we
identifiedtendistinctmovesasthemajorfunctionalcomponentsofhot
elresponses.Table3presentsthemostcommonmovesfoundinhotelres
ponsestonegativeonlinereviews,intheirorderoffrequency.
As thefinal column ofTable 3indicates, none of the 80
hotelresponses analyzed included all ten movesin their messages.
How-ever, the majority of the reviews did includethefirst eight move

typesshowna b o v e . W e n o w t u r n t o a m o r e d e t a i l e d d e s c
riptionand
Table2
Breakdowno f h o t e l r e s p o n s e s t o r e v i e w s , b y c i ty a n d r a t i n g .


1Beijing

a n d S h a n g h a i w e r e d e l i b e r a t el y avo ided, b e c a u s e t he v a s t n u m b e r o f
hotelsinbothcitieswasbelievedtoposedifficultyinnarrowingthesample.

City

Terrible( 1 s t a r )

Poor( 2 s t a r )

Total

Xi'an
Hangzhou
Nanjing
Chongqing
Total

7
8
10
4
29

20
12
15
4
51

27
20
25
8
80


discussionofeachmovetype.
(Anexampleofatypicalhotelresponsewithindividualmoveslabeledintextcanbeseenintheappendix.)
3.1.1. Move1:Expressgratitude
AsTable 3indicates, of the 10 moves, expressing gratitude
wasthe most frequent move found in this corpus
¼ (N73). This
moveservestothankconsumersforvariousactionsrelatedtotheirhotel
experience.A s c a n b e s ee n i n t h e e x a m p l e s be l o w , t h i s m o v e c an be
further categorized into three different sub-types: gratitude forthestay/choosing the
hotel
(1),
gratitude
for
providing
feedback(2),a nd g rati tu d e ing en era l ( 3 ) .
(1) Thankyouverymuch forstayingwithus.

(2) Thanky o u v e r y m u c h f o r s h a r i n g y o u r v a l u a b l e f e
e d b a c k regardingyourrecentvisittotheSpaat[hotelname]Hangzh
ou.
(3) Thankyouonceagain.
Thismoveappearsmostofteninthebeginningoftheresponses.However,
thesecondsub-typemayalsoappearinthemiddleofthemessage, and the third
sub-typeoftenappearsattheendoftheresponse.
3.1.2. Move2:Apologizeforsourcesoftrouble
Since we are focusing on hotels responses to negative
reviews(i.e., reviews which accompanied overall ratings
of“Terrible”and“Poor”),itisnotsurprisingthatthemovetype,Apolo
gizeforSources of Trouble, appears as the second most common
move
¼
inthecorpus(N68).Thismovefunctionsasanapologyfortheproblem(s)
experienced by the guest during the hotel visit, whichresulted in
the posting of a negative review. Instances of this
moveincludedth el exica lite ms sorry,apo lo gy ,orapolog ize .
(4) Pleaseacceptoursincereapologyforanyinconveniencecaused
.
(5) Wearesorrytohearwithyourstayexperiencewithus.
This move appears in variable positions in each response.
Inmost cases, it appears at the beginning of the text. Also, for
someresponses, this move appears more than once, such as a
secondappearance near the end of the text, which strengthens the
overallforce of the apology. In some instances, this move appears
in
thesamesentenceasMove6,AcknowledgeComplaint,makingitdifficul
t to sometimes delineate a clear boundary between
thesetwomo ves.

3.1.3. Move3:Invitationforasecondvisit
This move serves as an invitation for customers to return
foranotherhotelexperience.Itappearsin66ofthetotal80responses.
(6) Welookforwardtowelcomingyoubacktoourhotelagain.
(7) We appreciate your comments and sincerely hope that
youwill return to the[hotelname]Xi'an again in the not too
distantfuture.

Move 3 typically appears mostly the near end of the
message,and often functions as a pre-closing strategy, signaling
the
closingofthehotelreply.Eightofthehotelmanagerswhowroterespon
ses also provided their personal contact for the customers'future
visits, which potentially signals complimentary services
ordiscounts for the customers on a return visit. For business
offering“serviceproducts”
–suchashotelsandrestaurants–
customerloyalty and repeat business are important goals (Heyes
and Kapur,2012;Sp arks e ta l .,2 0 13 ).
3.1.4. Move4:Openingpleasantries
Move 4 appears in 64 out of 80 hotel responses, and it serves
asano p e n i n g f o r th e m a i n co n t en t of t h e h o te l 's me s s a g e.
(8) Dearv a l u e d g u e s t
(9) Dear[name]
As seen in the above examples, this move does not include
anycontent related to actual feedback; rather, it functions to
addressthe corresponding customers. On theTripAdvisorwebsite,
hotelscan respond directly to customer reviews by using an
online form,which is not structured in such a way that it requires
the hotel toaddress the specific customers, or to include their user

names. Yetthe frequent use of this move suggests that in hotel
responses
tocustomerreviews,openingpleasantries–
whicharegenerallyfound in formal letters and personalized email
messages–are alsoused frequently in this genre, most likely to mark this newer
genreofCMCa s a f o r m a l t y p e o f co rr es p o n d e n ce .
3.1.5. Move5:Proofofaction
Thismoveisfoundin63outof80hotelresponses,anditservesasareas
suranceforconsumersthatactionshavebeentakenregardingthecont
entinthereviews,ascanbeseen in theexamplebelo w.
(10) Rest assured since last year we have been concentrating
ontrainingandhavemademanyimprovementsintheserviceandattitudeo
fourt eam .
However, within those 63 replies that included this move,
onlyone third
¼ (N19) actually included detailed explanations of
theactionstakentoredressthespecificissuesdescribedinthereviews.
In contrast, most of the responses provided much
moregeneralaccounts,suchasactionhasbeentakenby[…]department/
managementte am ,ass ee n int h ef ol l o win g example.
(11) We would like to assure you that we have
communicatedyour feedback with the concerned department and
corrective actionshaveb ee nt ake n .
3.1.6. Move6:Acknowledgecomplaints/feedback
Thismoveacknowledgesandmakessomereferencetothecustome
rs' message. Not surprisingly, this move type appears in
asubstantialnumber(53/80)ofresponses,asmosthotelswhopost

Table3
Tenm o v e s i n h o t e l r e s p o n s e s t o o n l i n e c o n s u m e r c o m p l a i n t s .

Move
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Example

N

Expressg r a t i t u d e
Thanky o u o nce a g a i n .
73
ApologizeforsourcesoftroubleWea r e so rr y t o hearw i t h y o u r st ay e xpe r ie nce w i t h u s .
68
Invitationf o r a s e c o n d v i s i t
Wel o o k f o r w a r d t o we lcomin gy o u ba ck t o o ur h o t e l ag ai n.
66
Openingpleasantries
Dearv a lu e d g ue s t
64
Proofo f a c t i o n
Wewouldliketoassureyouthatwehavecommunicatedyourfeedbackwiththeconcerneddepartmentandcorrectiveactionshave63
beent a k e n .
Acknowledgecomplaints

Wea p p r e c i a t e y ou r f e e d ba ck a s t h is i s o u r be st re s o u r c e f o r i m p r o v i n g g ue s t s e r v i c e s.
53
/feedback
Refert o c u s t o me r r e v i e w s
Wew i l l di re ct t he i n f o r m at i o n a b o u t t h e b a t h ro o m an d R oo m se rv i ce w h at y o u me nti o ne d t o t h e a p p r o p r i a t e de p ar t me nt 50
Closingp l e a s a n t r i e s
Yourssincerely.
49
Avoidanceofr eo cc ur ri n
Yourkindfeedbackenablesustotargetproblemareasandtakethenecessaryactionstoensuresimilarsituationscanbeavoidedin26
gproblems
thefu t ur e.

10 Solicitr e s p o n s e

…pleasec o n t a ct m e at [ n a m e @ h o t e l. c o m ] so I c a n di sc us s w i t h y o uf o rt he p r o p e r ar ra ng ement .

24


responses to reviews do acknowledge their willingness to
acceptfeedbackandc o mm en ts .
(12) Weappreciateyourfeedbackasthisisourbestresourceforimprov
ingg ue s t s er vi c e s .
(13) At[hotelname],westrivetoprovideasuperiorserviceexperie
nceforeverycustomer;thereforeyourfeedbackisveryimportantt o us .
This move either appears alone (as can be seen in example
13),or–as mentioned earlier–it is sometimes combined with Move
2,ApologizeforSourcesofTrouble,asinexampl e14.
(14) Pleaseallowme,firstandforemost,toextendourapologiesforthe

disappointmentyouhaveexperiencedduringyourspatreatment with
the
assurance
that
we
continuously
strive
to
improveours e r vi ce basedo n feedbacksuchasyo urs .
However, in nearly 1/3 of the responses, hotels did not
includethismove.Usuallythiswasthecasewhenhotelsinsteadpr
ovideda detailed explanation for the consumers' negative experiences, orwhenthey
simply
skippeditaltogether
andmadeuseofothermoves,suchasMove2, Apologizefo rSource
sofTrouble.

3.1.7. Move7:Refertocustomerreviews
Amongthe80hotelresponses,50respondedtoaspecificfeature of
consumers' negative reviews. For example, in excerpt 15below, the
customer
had
complained
about
the
size
of
the
roomwhichw as c o n s i d e r a b l y smallert h a n whatt h e y had b o o k
ed.

(15) Upon receiving
your
comments
we conducted
investigationat once. Your room was blocked for maintenance and was due to
thecarelessnessof our staff, it was released to sell as available
room.Throughthisincidentandsubsequentlyinadequateserviceyouen
counteredinourexecutiveclublounge,showingthatwehaveinconsistents e
r vi c e an d s t andar d .
Asmostofthereviewersdoincludedetailedaccountsanddescripti
ons of their negative experiences, one might expect thathotels
responding to such reviews would include direct referencesto the
original posts. However, even though this move does appearwith
relative
frequency,
hotels
differ
considerably
in
the
extent
towhicht h e y r e f e r i n d e t a i l t o t h e c o n t e n t f o u n d i n t h e c
ustomer

review to which they are responding. This issue will be
discussedfurtheri n asu bs equ en tse ct io n o f t h i s art ic l e.

3.1.8. Move8:Closingpleasantries
The last move type to appear in the majority of
reviews,ClosingPleasantries, was found in 49 responses. Its

function is obvious: itsignalsth e en d i n g oft h e h o te l re sp o n s e.
(16) Yourssincerely.
(17) Bestandwarmestwishestoyou.GuestRelationsManager
Intermsofitsfrequency,move8contrastsslightlywithMove1(Openin
gPleasantries),whichappearsin 64oftheresponses(i.e.,
move8appearsin24%fewerresponsesthanMove1).
Another distinction among the closing pleasantries is the use
ofpersonal signatures, titles or corporate affiliations. Among the
49responses
that
included
closing
pleasantries,31hotelmessagesendedwiththeactualnamesoftheaut
horsand/orwiththeirsignaturelines,
usually
indicatingan
individualina
positionofleadership,eitherinhotelmanagementorcustomerservice
.However, a few general references
to the hotel or the
¼
managementteam were also found in the data (N14). One potential reason
forthismaybethatTripAdvisorprovides the responder's names andtitles
at the header of the hotel message. In other words, the
sitearchitecture,specificallythe“right-ofreply”(HeyesandKapur,2012)spaceprovidedbyTripAdvisor,includ
esaheaderwhichprefaces each hotel message, making the
information
in
thefinalsignatureline(name/title/affiliation)somewhatredundant,as
canbes ee ni n Fig . 1.

3.1.9. Move9:Avoidanceofreoccurringproblems
Promises of forbearance of this type appear in 26
responses.Basically,byincludingthismove,the hotels attempt to
ensurethecustomersthatthecausesofdissatisfactionareisolatedinci
dents,a n d t h a t t h e y w i l l n o t h a p p e n i n t h e f u t u r e . H o w e v e
r , thismoveissometimessubstitutedwithmove5,in
which
thehotelassuresthecustomerthat
some
action
has
been
taken.Also,i n s o m e c a s e s , m o v e s 5 a n d 9 c o o c c u r i n c l o s e p r o x i m i t y too n e a n o t h e r . B e c a u s e t h e s e
twomovesaresomewhatsimilar


Fig.1.H e a d e r informationthatappearsonTripAdvisor's“rightofreply”featureforhotels.


infunction,2thismay account
for
the
relatively smaller
numberofo c c u r r e n c e s o f t h i s m o v e .
(18) …them a n a g e m e n t team
will
paym o r e a t t e n t i o n to
improve the service as well as the facilities to ensure this
situationdoesno t r eo cc ur atany time.

(19) Your kind feedback enables us to target problem areas
andtakethenecessaryactionstoensuresimilarsituationscanbeavoidedint h e
f ut ur e .
3.1.10. Move10:Solicitresponse
In the dataset, only24 hotels offered customers the opportunity
forfurther communication with the hotel. There are two basic
subcate-gories of this move type. Thefirst appears along with the
hotel'sdetailed explanation of response/action taken to address
customers'negativereviews.Intheseinstances,thismoveusuallyappea
rswhenthehotelsarenotclearaboutthecustomers'complaints,andnee
dtoaskforfurtherclarification.ThesecondtypeappearsalongwithMove
3,whichwelcomesthecustomersforafuturereturntothehotel.Thistype
generally functions as a means for the customers to receive
acomplimentaryservicethathasbeenoffered.
(20) …pleasecontactmeat[]soIcandiscuss
withyoufortheproperarrangement.
(21) Ilookforwardtowelcomingyouagainin[hotelname]Nanjing,and
pleasecontactmedirectlyifthereisanythingIcanhelpyouwith.
Ourfindings suggest that this genre is a fairly formulaic
one,withverylittledeviationfromtheabovedescribedtenmoves.Whendeviationsdooccur,theytendtoconsistof
additionalexplanations (as can be seen below, in Example 25).
Thisfindingsuggeststhatalthoughbusinesses'responsestoonlinerev
iewsrepresentarelativelynewgenreofCMC,someofthegenre'sconventi
onsperhapscomefromother,existinggenres.AsdiscoursescholarJohnstone(2008)pointsout,newgenres
oftendraw
on older, more established genres. The typical ordering ofmoves
here suggests that this is the case: Businesses' responses toonline
reviews generally resemble the structure of a traditionalbusiness
letter, in that they include opening (Move 4) and closing(Move 8)
pleasantries, which appear at the beginning and end ofthe

message, respectively. A typical sequence of moves that occursin
many hotel responses is as follows (and is also illustrated by
theexamplein th e a p p e n d ix ):
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

Openingpleasantries (Mo ve4)
Gratitude( Move1)
ApologizeforsourcesofTrouble(Move2)
Somecombinationofthefollowing:
ProofofAction(Move5)
AcknowledgeComplaints/
Feedback(Move6)Referto
CustomerReviews(Move7)AvoidanceofReocc
urringProblems(Move9)
(5) InvitationforaSecondVisit ( Mo ve3)
(6) Solicitresponse(Move10)
(7) Closingpleasantries (Move8)

Whileo pe ning a n d clo sing p lea sa n trie s al wa y s ap pea rin th eir
fixedp o s i t i o n s , t h e p o s i t i o n s o f
theothermovesaresomewhat
2
Althoughs o m e w h a t s i m i l a r , t h e s e m o v e s a r e n o t i d e n t i c a l i n f
u n c t i o n . Followingw o r k i n pr a g m at ic s ( BlumKulkaa n d O l s h t a i n , 1984),w e c o n s i d e r M o v e 5,ProofofAction,asanalogouswith“R
epair”(i.e.,someexpressionof“we tookaction tofix the problem”), whereas our Move
9,Avoidance of Recurring Problem,would analogous to the category of“Promise of
Forbearance”(i.e.,“it

won't
happenagain.”)Whileinmaterialterms,theclaimmadeinMove 9 may seem to
entailsomeaction having taken place,the occurrence of Move 5 and Move 9 in

discourseisequallyoptional.Forthisreason,weconsiderthemtobedistinctfunctionalcategor
ies.


morefluid.Ingeneral,Move1(Gratitude)isusuallyfoundbeforeMove2
(ApologizeforSourcesofTrouble),andMoves3
and
10usually
appearneartheendofthemessage,rightbeforeMove8(ClosingPleasa
ntries).Moves5(ProofofAction),6(AcknowledgeComplaints/
Feedback), 7 (Refer to Customer Reviews) and 9 (AvoidanceofReoccurringProblems)tend to comprise the main body
ofthe response, and these four moves are the most variable in
theirorderacrossdifferenttexts.Recognizingthisstructure–
anditsindividualcomponents–
maybeofvaluetostudentslearningtoproducet h e s e t y p e s o f t e x t s
.

Sincerely,Genera
lManager[hotelna
me]
Identicalornearidenticalsyntacticandlexicalpatternsoccurringa c r o s s d i f f e r e n t r e v i e w s , s u g g e s t t h e u s e o f a t e m p l a
teora

3.2. Intertextualityandgenericversusspecificresponses
AswasnotedinthediscussionofMoves5and7,hotelresponses
varyconsiderablyinthedegreetowhich

they
referback to
customers' reviews, and the extent to which they
providedetailed,specificexplanationsreplyingtotheissues
raised
inthosereviews.Ofallthedatacollected,30hotelresponsesprovid
ed general responses only without any detailed
explanationreferring to the original customers' review. The
following exampleillustratesth is n o n - s p e c i ficap p ro ac h .
(22) Thank you very much for sharing your experience here
andweapprecaiteyoureffortstoletusknowwherewecandobetter.We
havetakenactionsontheareasmentionedinyourcomment.Welookforwar
dtobringyouabetterexperienceinthenearfuture.
Thesetypesofresponsesoftenrepeatthesamelexicalandsynta
cticpatterns,andshowlittlevariationacrossmultiplereviews.Itis
clearthatthistypeofresponse could apply to awide range of
potential
complaints.
In
the
most
extreme
case
wefoundinourdataset,anidenticalnonspecifichotelresponse(similartoexample22)wasusedfortwoco
mpletelydifferentcustomers' reviews about two different
types of problems (i.e., onecomplainedonlyaboutthebed;theothercomplained
about thegeneral service). The same, or similar, responses are
often used bythesameindividuals addressing reviews
onbehalfofthesamehotelch ain .
Thef o l l o w i n g e x a m p l e i l l u s t r a t e s a r e o c c u r r i n g p a t t

e r n f o u n d inaninternationalhotelchain,withresponsestoprope
rtieslocatedi n a l l o f t h e f o u r c i t i e s i n c l u d e d i n o u r s a m p l
e . ( F r o m a l l the responses (N21) provided by this particular
hotel chain,6 appear with no author signature, 7 of them are
signed with aposition title (e.g.,“General Manager”), and 8
include
signaturesfromdifferentindividuals.)Inexample23,theunderlin
edsentencesappearedinseveraldifferentresponsesfromthishotelchain,
suggesting the possibility that either one corporate representative is responding to consumer complaints for hotels
locatedin multiple cities, or that different customer service
representativesworkingforthesamehotelchainarefollowingabasictemplat
e.
(23) DearS i r / M a d a m :
Thank you for taking the time to write a review and tell us
aboutyour experience at the [hotelname]Hangzhou. I am sorry
that
yourexperiencedidnotmeetyourexpectations;pleaseallowmetoex
pressmy si ncer es tapo lo gi es .
At[hotelname],westrivetoprovideasuperiorserviceexperiencefor
every customer; thereforeyour feedbackis very important tous .
Your comments concerning the need to renovate the hotel are
wellunderstood and indeed[theowner]and[hotelname]will
commence
withsuchaprogramthisyear.
We appreciate your sharing your concerns, and it is our hope
thatyouwillgiveustheopportunitytobetterserveyouinthenearfuture.

¼

copypasteapproach. Obviously, non-specic, or generic,
ỵ
hotelresponses,suchastheexampleabove,canbecreatedwithoutkno
wingthespecicdetailsofcustomerreviews.Theyalsocontrastdrama
ticallywiththeoriginalcustomers'complaints,whichtend to bequite
detailedandspecicabout the nature ofthe problem(s) discussed
(Vásquez,
2011,
2013).
With
their
lack
ofelaborationonthespecificissuediscussedinthecustomer'sfeedback,th
esetypesofvagueandunder-specifiedresponsesmight
raise
questions about the hotels' claims of their valuing
ofcustomerfeedback(claimsfo und in53/80responses).
By“intertextuality”here we refer to those hotel responses
thatactually makesome reference to comments found in the
originalcustomerreview. As discussed earlier (move 7,Refer to
CustomerReviews), quite a few hotels (38%) did not refer to any
of theinformation from the original customer review. In contrast,
50/80hotel responsesdid refer to some aspect of the original
reviews,but these vary in the degree of detail included. Thus, we
identifiedtwobasictypesofintertextualstrategies:
(1)intertextualresponses which referred briefly to the
problem(s)
mentioned(sucha s “ then e e d t o r e n o v a t e t h e h o t e l , ”ine x a
mple23),and
(2) those which provided a more detailed explanation in

responseto
theproblem(s)
discussedintheoriginalreview.Clearly,thisdistinctioni s a rel a tive o
n e.
For thefirst type, hotels referred back briefly to the
originalreviews,yettheydidnotprovidedetailedexplanations.When
thesereviewsincludedMove5(ProofofAction),the“action”referred
to in these types of responses typically is quite
general,such as“an investigation is under way,”a variant of which
appearsint h ef o l l o wi n g example.
(24) Your feedback on our guest room has been taken note
andwillbeinvestigatedbyourExecutiveHousekeeperandChiefEnginee
ring.
For the second type, 19 out of 50 responses included
hotels'explanations for the problems that occurred, as described
in
theoriginalcustomercomplaints.Inmostofthesecases,hotelsprovid
ed an apology along with some additional explanation
orjustificationabouttheproblematicissue.For
example,thenextexcerpt shows a hotel's post that responds to a
customer
complainta bo u t a sl o win te rne t c o n n e c t i o n i n t h e h o t el .
(25) First of all, I would like to apologize for the discomfort
youencountered
duringyourstayinourhotel.[Move2]We
have
sincethenu p g r a d e d o u r i n t e r n e t s e r v i c e s a n d o u r p r o v i d e r i s n o
w o f f e r i n g alargerbandwidth .
[Move5]InChina,certainpagesmaytakelongertoappear, and some
internationalsites are unavailable. [Additionalexplanation]

Thoughbothtypesofresponsescanbecharacterizedas“intertextu
al”in the sense that they make reference to the originalusergeneratedreview,itisclearthattheydonotprovide thesamelevelofdetail,in
eitherexplanationsforwhytheproblemoccurred, or how it is being corrected.
However,
both
types
doindicatethattheauthorshaveatleastreviewedtheactualcustomer
complaints.

3.3. “Personalvoice”andclaimingresponsibility:signaturesand
pronouns
As noted earlier,Closing Pleasantrieswas not one of the
mostfrequentm o v e s . T h i s i s p e r h a p s d u e t o t h e h e a d e r
i n f o r m a t i o n thatappearsonTripAdvisor's“right ofreply”feature
for
hotels,whichs e r v e s t o i d e n t i f y t h e a u t h o r o f t h e r e s p o n
seasarepresentativeofthehotel(asshowninFig.1).However,ofthe49hotel

Table4
Frequency offirst person singular and plural pronouns
inhotelr es p o n s e s .
Rank

Tokens

Pronouns

6
8
9

15
63
70

269
186
131
92
26
24

We
Our
Us
I
My
Me

hotelsd i d n o t p r o v i d e a s p e c i ficn a m e o f t h e a u t h o r o r t h e corp
orationaspartofthe ClosingPleasantries mo ve .)
(27) With warm regards,
[hotelname]
HotelM a n a g e m e n t T e a m
(28) Bewell,
[firstnamelastname]
ExecutiveA s s i s t a n t M a n a g e r
As discussed in the previous sections, ourfinding that Move
8(ClosingPleasantries)appearswithslightlylessfrequencythanMove
4(OpeningPleasantries)maybepartlyattributedtothewebsitearchite
ctureoftheright-to-replyspaceprovidedbyTripAdvisor,

which
automatically inserts the hotel information atthe top of the
responses. However, there is quite a bit of variationdemonstrated
with respect to signatures in closing pleasantries.Not only did 31
responses include no signature at all, of the 49 thatdidincludeasignature,
14 responses identified the author only interms of his/her corporate
role.
Taken
together
then,
thesefindingindicatethat,inresponsemessagestocustomercomplai
nts,information personally identifying the author is not included
inover half (i.e., 46) of the responses. Rather than identifying
theauthor of the message as an individual, the emphasis seems to
beona co l l e ct ive ,c o rp o r at e i d e n t it y.
Thisinterpretation is furthercorroboratedbyawordfrequency
list
generated
via
the
concordancing
software,AntConc(Anthony,2011).Table4showstherelativefrequen
ciesoffirstpersonsingularandfirstpersonpluralpronounsthatappea
redinthedataset.
This comparison of pronoun frequencies in the dataset
showsthatfirst person plural pronouns,we,us, andour(N586)
¼
occuralmost 4 times more frequently than theirfirst person
3
singularcounterparts,I,me,my(N¼142). Thisfinding indicates that,

mostoften,a u t h o r s o f r e s p o n s e s t o c o n s u m e r c o m p l a i n t s
referto
themselves as
a corporate collective.
However,
some
exceptionsto this trend can also be observed (e.g., in excerpts 14,
20, 21, 23,25), and in these cases, the use of afirst person singular
pronounoften occurs with apologies (i.e.,I am sorry), or with
theSolicitResponsemove, where future communication with the
individualoffering personal contact actually does require a
personal identi-fier. It is also interesting to note that several
responses
demonstratealternationbetweenfirstpersonsingularandpluralreferences
–even within a brief stretch of discourse–as can beenseen in
excerpts 14, 23, and 25. By and large however, the authorsof hotel
responses do not personally claim responsibility for theguest's
unpleasant travel
experiences.4Besides reflecting individualwriters'stylistic preferences,this may alsoreflectthedistributedn a t u r e o f w o r k a n d r e s p o n s i b i l i t y i n t h e h o s p i t
ality


responses that included Move 8 (Closing Pleasantries), 45
hotelsincluded a signature, either identifying the author as a
corporateentity(N¼14),orviaapersonalnameand/orprofession
altitle
(N¼31),asseenrespectively, inthetwoexamplesbelow.(Four

3
Interestingly, the relative proportions offirst person plural reference, compared tofirst person singular reference, is opposite to that which is typically

foundinsp o ke n a n d w r i t t e n r eg i st e rs .( e . g . , B i b e r e ta l . , 1 9 9 9 ).
4
Similar uses of the“business‘we’”have been previously identified in
otherformsofbusinesscommunication( e.g., HaggeandKostelick, 1989).


industry, as well as perhaps also the distributed nature of
onlinereputation management. In other words, it is quite possible
thatthe authors of such corporate responses may even be
geographicallyremovedf ro mth ehot el p ro p e rt y theyarewrit in g a bo u t .

4. Conclusions
Our analysis of 80 online hotel responses (posted onTripAdvisor,inreplytocustomercomplaints)identifiedatotaloftendistinctmo
ves,witheightofthosemovesappearingin
themajority of hotel
responses. Among these, expressions of gratitudeandapologieswerethe
mostfrequentmoves.Openingandclosingpleasantries were also quite common
(similar
to
thefindings
ofPage(2014)whoexaminedcorporateapologiesonTwitter),suggest
ingthatthesemovesfunctionto
mark
the
formality
ofthisgenreofCMC.Yet,inspiteofthesesimilarities–andtherelatively
formulaic nature of this genre–ourfindings also pointto two
related phenomena which exhibit some interesting variabilityacrosscas es .
Existinga s p a r t o f t h e s a m e g e n r e c h a i n , t h e s e t e x t s a r e
intertextually linked to an obvious antecedent: consumer

reviews.Yet there is considerable variation in how explicitly
businesses'responses signal this intertextual connection. Only 19
of the 80responses actually provided detailed explanations about
the causeof the problem described in the review, and/or specific
steps
ofactionsforimprovement.Andalthoughamajorityofhotelresponses
did refer back to the original customer complaints tosome extent,
a substantial number of responses made only verygeneral
mentions of the nature of the problem discussed in theoriginal
review. More specifically, around one-third of the hotels
inthedatasetrespondedtoconsumercomplaintsusinganonspecificapproach.Inmany cases,theauthorsofthesekindsofresponses
did
not
need
to
actually
read
the
customers'
feedback
togenerateapologeticresponses.Andweevenobservedseveralinstance
s where a representative/(s) from the same hotel chain,writing
responses
to
complaints
about
hotels
in
different
cities,usedi de n tic al s y n t a c ti c s tr u c tu re s .

Fromt h e d a t a a v a i l a b l e t o u s , i t i s u n c l e a r w h a t e x a c t l
y
motivatesthis“nonspecific”approachforrespondingtoonlinereviews. It may be the
result of an organizational priority whichemphasizes speed and
efficiency in posting responses; or it may bean attempt to standardize
responsesacrossindividualrepresenta-tives; or it may be a means to lessen the
demands of the writingtask for company representatives who are
new
to
the
genre
(orwhomaybewritinginalanguagewithwhichtheyarenotcompletel
ycomfortable)5–orsomecombinationofthe
above.This question
could be explored in the future, perhaps via inter-views with the
representatives from hotel chains who are responsiblefo rpo st in g r es p o n se s to re v i ew s o nl ine.
Another related, interesting, and perhaps even more
important,issuethatthisraiseshastodowithreaders'reactionstobusiness
es'responses.Ithasbeenfoundthat60%ofcustomerswhocomplainonline do expect a
response
from
the
company
(Van
Noort
andWillemsen,2011,p.133).Howarevagueandunderspecifiedrespo
nsesperceivedbytheconsumerwhopostedtheoriginalcomplaint?
Andhowaretheseresponsesperceivedbyotherconsumers
reading
them, especially since–asHeyes and Kapur(2012)point out– “the

objective is not only (or even primarily) toassuagethataggrieved
customer, but the numerous third partieswho are‘overhearing’that
conversation
online”(p.
824)?
Certainly,whenconsideredthroughtheperspectiveof“conversational
human

5

Aso n e r e v i e w e r h a s p o i n t e d o u t , i t i s p o s s i b l e t h a t E n g l i s h m a y n o t b e
the
firstl a n g u a g e o f t h e a u t h o r s o f s o m e o f t h e r e s p o n s e s i n o u r s a m p l e .


voice,”seeinganidenticalornearidenticalresponsepostedinresponse to several different
reviews
addressing
a
variety
of
issuesmightraisequestionsaboutabusiness'ssincerityinthemindsofa
tleastsome“overhearing”consumers.Userperceptionsof,andreactionsto,authent
iconlinebusinessresponsesrepresentsapressing issue (and one
with
obvious
implications
for
reputationmanagement),whichawaitsfurtherresearch.
Besides“conversational human voice”as an effective

strategyfor businesses addressing negative comments online,
one recentstudy points out that representing employees as
individuals
mayalso
be
an
effective
strategy
in
online“customer care”(Van Noortand Willemsen, 2011, p.
139). However, thefindings of our studyreveal varying degrees
of personalization of the author composingthe response text
on behalf of the hotel. In fact, the majority
ofauthorsofresponsesdonotselfidentifyasindividuals.Whenclosing pleasantries are included,
the authors of responses mostoften identify themselves as a
corporate
entity,
such
as“managementteam”or“salesteam.”Conversely,only39%ofauthorsinclu
de some personal information, such as a name or a professional title, in their closings. The preference forfirst person
pluralpronounsoverfirstpersonsingularpronounsinthesetextsfur
thersupportsourobservationthatauthorstendtoemphasizetheircor
porate identities over their personal identities when producingthis genre. This
might
be
expected,
given
that
individual
authorsarewritingonbehalfofalargerorganization.Nevertheless,s

everalof these texts also feature some alternation betweenfirst
personsingular(I)andfirstpersonplural(we)perspectiveswithin
asingle message. It would be interesting to examine a larger
corpusofsimilardatatoseeifanyclearerpatternsemergeforthose
moves (or the specific grammatical constructions) that feature
theless-frequentlyused fi rstpersons in gu l ar pr o n o m in a l fo rms.
Althougho u r s tu d y p r o v i d e s s o m ep r e l i m i n a r y , e mp ir ic al
ly
based observations about hotels' responses to online reviews,
wearecognizantofseverallimitationsofourstudy.Wearewellawarethatourdatasetisbothlimited insizeaswellasrestric
tedto a single geographic location (i.e., hotels in China). In addition,many
ofthehotelsinthesamplearelarge,well-known,multinationalcorporatechains.Althoughthisfactparticularizesoursa
mpleevenfurther,atthesametime,italsoreducesthepossibilityof
ourfindingsbeingculturallyidiosyncratic.Large,multinational
corporations are likely to employ individuals frommany parts
of the world, and it is possible that the authors of
thesetextscomefromavarietyofgeographic,culturalandlanguage
backgrounds.
Moreover,
we
would
argue
that
the
communicationpatternswehaveidentifiedare,insomesense,“global,
”withrespectt o t h ef a c t t h a t t h e y are w r i t t e n i n E n g l i s h , a
n d i n t e n d e d foraninternationalaudience(insteadofbeingwritteninChinesefor a
local audience). We have no reason to believe that our
sampleisinanywaynon-representative;yetadditionalresearch
isneededtodeterminehowsimilarordifferentthesehotelrespons

es are to online consumer reviews posted about hotels inother
countries–and ultimately, how generalizeable ourfindingsare
to the genre as a whole. If future research does corroborate
thefindingspresentedhere,thentheymaybehelpfulin
providingbusinesscommunicationeducatorswithguidelinesfor
teachingthe moves that characterize this particular genre, and for
engagingwiths o m eo f th e re l at ed is suesth at o urs tu dy h as rai
s ed .
Asd i s c u s s e d , o u r s a m p l e h a s f o c u s e d o n l y o n h o t e l s f r o
mthe
higheststarcategories,whichareoftenpropertiesfromlarge,wellknown, multinational corporate chains. Our earlier observations indicated that smaller, non-chain hotels tended to post
fewerresponses to reviews than larger, chain hotels. However
it
will

bebothinterestingandimportantinthefuturetocomparethestrategie
s used by representatives from these categories of hotelswith the
responses from the hotel types examined here. This
iscrucialbecausesmallerproperties arenotonlymore likelytohave


fewerhumanandotherresourcesinplaceforrespondingtoreviews,b
uttheymayalsobemorevulnerablethanlargercorporationst othed e
l et e ri o u s e f fe c ts o f n eg at ive e W O M .
Traditionally, customer complaints were addressed via
privatecorrespondencebetweentheconsumerandthebusiness,inap
rocesscalled“servicerecovery”(GuandYi,2014).However,eWOMha
smadeitpossibleforconsumerstopostnegativecommentsonline,the
rebymakingtheircomplaintspublic,andshifting
the

intended
audience to include both the business as wellas other
consumers.Businessesresponses appeartobetaking into
account
this
wider
audience.
AsGu
and
Yi
(2014)observe“Thepublic nature of the online recovery effort
[…] requires the serviceproviders to consider not only how their
responses
influence
thecomplainingcustomersbutalsohowtheyinfluence
customerswhoo b s e r v e t h e c o m p l a i n t s a n d t h e m a n a g e m e
ntresponses”
(emphasis ours). This observation in supported by another
study(citedinSparksetal.,2013),inwhichresearchersfoundthat“see
ing a management response is important”to the majority
ofindividualssurveyed(p.2).Thoughelectronicwordofmouthcannot
becontrolled,itisevidentthatitcanandshouldbemanaged(Lookereta
l.,2007).Furtherresearchisneededtodetermine how consumers
perceive
and
react
to
various
strategiesusedbybusinessesinrespondingto,andmanaging,custome
rdissatisfactioni n a n o n l in ee n v i ro n m en t.

Appendix.Example
moveslabeled

of

a

complete

hotel

response,

with

DearMs.Wang,[Move 4 :OpeningPleasantries]
ThankyouforchoosingXXXatyourrecentvisittoNanjingandfortakingso
me of your valuable time to share your experience on line.
[Move1 :G ra t i tu d e]
Firstandforemost,pleaseacceptoursincerestapologiesforbeingunablet
o meet your expectations during your visit of June 5th. [Move2:
Apologize
for
Sources
of
Trouble]
After
reviewing
your

comments,pleasebeinformedthatwehavesharedthemwiththerelatedde
partmentheads,i.e.FoodandBeverageManager,ExecutiveHousekeeperandFrontOfficeManagerinorderforthemtotakethenecessarycor
rectiveactionsandtrainingtoensurethattheseincidents do not occur
again.
[Move
5:
Proof
of
Action;
Move
9:Avoidanceof R eoc cu rrin g P ro bl e ms ]
Ms.W a n g , w e d o v a lu e y o u r c o m m e n t s a s i t i s t h r o u g h t h e m t
h a t weare ableto furtherimproveour service standards and offer
youandallourguestsabetterexperiencewheneveryou stay with us.
[Move6:AcknowledgeComplaints/Feedback] We hope you can
giveusanotheropportunitytoprovethatweareuptoourpromisedstandard
s.Asagestureofgoodwill,Iwouldliketoofferyouacomplimentaryupgrade
to our river view suite including allrelatedbenefits(breakfast,
afternoonteaandeveningcocktail,etc)
on
yournextv i s i t .
[Move3:Invitation foraSecondVisit]
PleasefeelfreetocontactmeorourFront
Office
Manager
Mr.
(FirstLastname)at()directlyforanyfuturereservat
ionsorassistance.
[Move10:SolicitResponse]Wearelookingf o r w a r d t o w e l c o m i n g y
o ubacktothe(hotelname) soon.

Sincerelyyours,
(FirstLastname)[Move8:ClosingPleasantries]
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