Consumer Comment Behavior And The Calendar Effect: A Longitudinal Study In Services | Milos Bujisic & H.G. Parsa

Consumer comments are considered essential tools to enhance any product or service. Unfortunately, the effect of day of the week and time of the day on consumer comment behavior is one of the least understood areas in spite of plethora of scientific evidence. Current study investigates the role of day and time of the week on consumers? comment behavior. Results from a year-long study of 31 restaurants indicated that day of the week and time of the day have a significant effect on consumers? comments. Majority of comments were focused on service attributes followed by food, ambiance and price. The week days between Thursdays through Sundays have experienced most of the comments followed by the period of Sunday through Tuesday. Surprisingly, in contrast to the commonly held belief, lunch periods had the highest number of comments followed by dinner and breakfast periods. Comments are significantly more positive when an employee?s name is included in customers? comments compared to the situation where no employee name is included.