Analysis of Online Customer Complaints and its Role in Service Quality Improvement in Health Tourism Businesses

Abstract

Purpose – Online complaint management has an important place for businesses in terms of improving service quality, providing competitive advantage and developing strategies to solve problems. E-WOM on digital platforms, the number of which has increased with technological developments, has become very important. The purpose of this study is to comparatively examine the e-complaints and UGC (user-generated content) reported by customers from health tourism businesses, focusing on hotel businesses, within the determined sample, on Tripadvisor, to categorize them and to offer solution suggestions in terms of problem solving, providing feedback, improving service quality and developing strategies for the future. Design/methodology/approach – Secondary data, which is UGC (user-generated content) data, was used in the research. On the Tripadvisor web platform, the comments of thermal hotels, which are the three most commented health tourism establishments in Afyon, Turkey, were examined, categorized, codes were created and analyzed. Comparative solution suggestions have been created to increase service quality within the analyzed dimensions and sub-dimensions. Findings – According to the findings obtained in the study, 12 basic dimension codes were created with the input of customer comments in the "bad" and "horrible" filters obtained from the Tripadvisor website for three samples. In the first sample, 47 sub-dimensions were identified within the basic dimension codes, in the second sample, 63 sub-dimensions, and in the third sample, 58 sub-dimensions were identified. Discussion – When the findings are evaluated, the most complained issues for all three research samples are; It was determined that there were problems with the room, problems with the pool and pool water, and problems with the food. One of the points frequently mentioned in the complaints received on the web platform is the low quality of service. In this sense, businesses should increase the effectiveness of customer services and respond to customer complaints more quickly and effectively. In order to understand and resolve customer complaints, the source of the complaints should be investigated and a proactive approach should be applied.