The Impact of Message Content And Descriptive Features On Review Helpfulness: An Empirical Study

Abstract

The way reviews are written can affect the consumer's perception of information helpfulness.Two people may convey the same information in two different ways and hence changing the way they are perceived by others. The major influences are in message content and descriptive features. The proposed paper exhibits a study that uses reviews from Amazon India. The intention behind the research is to identify the change in the helpfulness of review with the variation in message content and the descriptive features. This could further help predict the helpfulness of review if the descriptive and message content is known. The methodology in the paper incorporates a regression model which includes the review rating, review length, review valence, number of First-person singular pronouns, number of First-person plural pronouns, number of second-person plural pronouns, number of third-person plural pronouns and affect. These are the descriptive features and the message content considered. From the study, it was clear that review helpfulness is influenced by the message content and descriptive features. This may not immediately contribute to short-term sales performance but will increase customer satisfaction and lead to long-term firm value.