Examining the influence of linguistic characteristics of online managerial response on return customers’ change in satisfaction with hotels

For hotels, strengthening their relationships with customers to build loyalty and encourage them to become repeat patrons enhances their financial performance. Online managerial response (MR) is an effective means for hoteliers to interact with customers and attract return customers. This study examines how the linguistic characteristics of MRs in five dimensions—sentiment polarity, subjectivity, diversity, length, and readability—affect return customers’ change in satisfaction. We find that, for primary dissatisfied customers, diversity and sentiment polarity of MRs decrease customers’ incremental satisfaction during their second visit. For primary satisfied customers, MRs’ readability positively affects customers’ second-time incremental satisfaction, whereas sentiment polarity negatively affects it. The subjectivity and length of MRs do not have a significant effect on return customers’ satisfaction change. Our findings provide guidelines for hotel managers on how to write responses to customer reviews with a linguistic style that enhances customers’ retention and subsequent satisfaction upon revisiting. • Linguistic features of managerial responses affect return customers’ satisfaction. • The effects are different for primary satisfied and dissatisfied customers. • Polarity and diversity affect dissatisfied customers’ return satisfaction change. • Polarity and readability affect satisfied customers’ return satisfaction change. • Subjectivity and length do not affect return customers’ satisfaction change.