The Impact of Word of Mouth (WOM) on the Purchasing Decision of the Jordanian Consumer

Ahmad M. Zamil King Saud University, Riyadh Community College, Faculty of Administrative Science P.O.Box 28095, Riyadh 11437, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia E-mail: drahmad764@yahoo.com,azamil@ksu.edu.sa Tel: 966 543718710 Abstract The speed of everything has become one of the features of this era; spread of knowledge and information, communications, e-management, e-marketing and selling and even eeverything, the whole practice became faster and more useful through the means of various communications. The importance of this study as it deals with a contemporary theme, a mobile communication services and which is now in fierce competition. Organizations, in order to maintain its existence and continuity in the market, they must employ an integrated marketing strategies, investing their current customers as unpaid marketers through their word of mouth. The findings of this study indicate that Companies of all types have to be aware that word of mouth is an important part of the marketing strategy. Companies must build good relations with its customers to earn their loyalty, and ensure their commitment to talk about the virtues of the company and its products in all forums. Managers must understand that the satisfied customer can attract new customers through word of mouth.

Keywords: Word of Mouth, Purchasing Decision, Jordanian Consumer

1. Introduction
Word of Mouth is the sound of new ideas up to our ears in several ways such as; telling stories, dialogs, conversations, shared experiences radio and etc., and its impact remains on our souls until we hear another story, thus, word of mouth helps us to know about what is new, and what is the latest. These days we often hear people talking about hybrid cars, some of them focus on energy saving as an advantage, and others are focusing on it's environmentally care, because it does not pollute the air as a result of fuel combustion, whereas, others warn of the high cost compared to regular cares (www.hybridcars.com). This means that word of mouth is an important source of information to consumers. Literature in marketing has defined word of mouth, or "between customer communication" as a probable driver of consumer decision making (chevalier and maysilin, 2004, P. 2).Word of mouth may be positive or negative the customers who are satisfied will continue purchasing the product, and in telling others about these good products, while customers who are not satisfied will remember only disadvantages of the product and they will tell others about these disadvantages (Richins, 2009).This study will focus on the impact of word of mouth, in directing the purchasing behavior of Jordanian consumer, when choosing to purchase the services of a mobile telecommunication companies.

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2. Problem Statement and Questions

The study's problem can be formulated according to the following statement: "Word of mouth plays and important role in the buying decision to the final consumer." And the discussion of this problem will be according to the following questions: 1. Is word of mouth as one of marketing tools play significant role in affecting consumer intention to buy? 2. In any cases, the impact of word of mouth on the purchase decision to the final consumer is greater? 3. Is the impact of negative word of mouth on the purchase decision to the final consumer is greater than the impact of positive word of mouth?

3. Importance of the Study

The speed of everything has become one of the features of this era; spread of knowledge and information, communications, e-management, e-marketing and selling and even e-every thing, the whole practice became faster and more useful through the means of various communications. The importance of this study as it deals with a contemporary theme, a mobile communication services and which is now in fierce competition. Organizations, in order to maintain its existence and continuity in the market, they must employ an integrated marketing strategies, investing their current customers as unpaid marketers through their word of mouth.

4. Objectives of the Study

This study aims to achieve the following objectives: 1. Evaluation of mobile telecommunications companies operating in Jordan, in terms of market share and sales. 2. Determining the reasons for preferring the services of certain company from other companies. 3. Defining the role of word of mouth as one of marketing tools.

5. Hypotheses of the Study

H1: Purchasing behavior of the final consumer is affected by the negative word of mouth, more than the positive word of mouth. H2: There is a significant statistically relationship between the buying decision of the final consumer, and the source of word of mouth. H3: There is a significant statistically relationship between the choice of the final consumer of the services from one of the mobile communication companies, and the word of mouth transmitted from one person to another.

6. Theoretical Background and Literature Review

6.1. Word of Mouth in the Marketing Perspective There is a wide body of literature of marketing, which addressed the word of mouth as an effective marketing tool. (Sernovitz, et al (2009) Pointed out that people love to talk about products they have bought, and services they have used, also they talk about the producer of these products, and the provider of these services. Also some people feel proud, because he bought a particular product, however, some of them provide advice to others not to think about buying a product. Then the word of mouth marketing is about earning that good conversation. Other researchers have considered word of mouth as a key success for organizations (Lake, 2009). Lake (2009) added that psychologically, we as
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consumers will not trust a lot. Ads of the producer himself, but we are more trusting of people repeating and talking about the product. In contrast, the view of some researchers, that many of the producers or sellers, believe the illusion they are selling their products due to their high quality only, but the reality is that people are buying the product, often not necessarily in response to the producer or his marketing efforts, but in response to what they hear from other neutral parties (Silverman, 2002, P.6). In this regard, (Liu, 2006) has reported in his article entitled " word of mouth for movies: Its Dynamics and Impact on Box Office Revenue" has used actual word of-mouth information, to examine how the word of mouth increases box office revenue, where the results of the research showed; that interpretation to increasing the box office revenue due to the volume of word of mouth. As mentioned in the introduction of this study, the word of mouth maybe positive or negative, in this regard some of the marketing literatures have linked between the type of word of mouth and the degree of customer satisfaction. For example (Steinkuehler and Williams, 2006) have indicated that there are three theories about consumers engaging in word of mouth: 1. Satisfied customers call word of mouth for many reasons, including: They like to help others. To appear knowledgeable or smart. For the reduction of cognitive conflict Draw attention to them. May have reservations about what others think positive. Avoid going into the negatives. 2. Dissatisfied consumers call word of mouth, because: To vent about what offended. Reduce anxiety Warn others The desire for revenge. 3. The third theory is talking about word of mouth, from extremely satisfied customers, and those who are not satisfied a tall, both, have greater impact, because word of mouth by them will be more extreme. But other researchers believed that customer satisfaction does not mean engaging in positive word of mouth, but should motivate the customer to echo the positive word of mouth (Writz and Chew, 2002) have reported that, the good relationship between the customer and the organization is the most important incentive in this aspect. We can say that word of mouth is a double edged Sword, because the organization can reap many benefits through the positive word of mouth, where (Lue, 2009. P. 148) has reported that "word of mouth, or the voice of the customer is one of the most effective tools for generating sales and future cash flows. 6.2. Mobile Communications in Jordan Adaptation with the information and communications revolution, has led most of the world's countries to use mobile communications. Jordan now is witnessing a large spread in benefiting of mobiles services, in 1995, Fast Link was the first company enters the Jordanian market, and this early entry contributed in its acquisition of the whole market without any competition. And the company has earning the wide popularity and good reputation on the regional level, through it's responding for the advanced technologies and developed services. Now, Fast Link in Jordan is working through its new name "Zain Jordan". The mission of Zain is "to cement Zain as a leading global mobile operator that provides professional, world class mobile and data services to all our customers, wherever they are, world wide. And we aim to achieve this by exceeding our customer's expectations, rewarding our employees, and providing returns beyond reasonable expectations for our share holders (www.zain.com). In 1999, another company entered the Jordanian market, Mobile Com is a company licensed to run the mobile communications service granted to Jordan Telecom, and on this basis it is
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integrated into the Jordanian experience with the techniques and experiences of France Telecom. Mobile Com mission is to embrace innovation and to spread its advanced services across the entire kingdom (JTC Website).The third mobile communication company working in Jordan is Umniah, owned by Kuwaiti and Jordanian investors. The company seeks to increase its share in the Jordanian market.

7. Research Methodology
7.1. Research Model
Independent variables Word of mouth Negative word of mouth Positive word of mouth Source of the word of mouth Dependent variables Purchasing behavior Buying decision Buy Not Buy

7.2. Research Type This research is descriptive quantitative one with analytical measurements to measure the relationship between the research variables. 7.3. Data Collection The secondary data has been collected through the books and articles available in libraries and the internet. In order to collect the primary data, the researcher has designed a questionnaire distributed on Jordanian citizen living in Amman. 7.4. Study Population and Sample The study population is the Jordanian citizens who are using the mobile communications services and the sample consisted 1200 respondents. 7.5. Data Analysis The table below shows the sample distribution of the sample according to the gender.
Table 1:
Gender Males Females Total Frequency 320 880 1200 Percentage 26.7% 73.3% 100%

Table 1 shows that females have the greater percentage of 73.3%, while males have only 26.7%. Table 2 below shows the sample distribution according to the education level.
Table 2:
Qualification Less than high school High school Diploma BSc Graduate studies Total Frequency 110 340 110 530 110 1200 Percentage 9.2% 28.3% 9.2% 44.2% 9.2% 100%

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It is clear that BSc holders are the biggest number among the respondents, followed by high school students with 44.2% and 28.3% respectively. Table 3 below shows the distribution of the respondents according to the mobile company that they deal with.
Table 3:
Companies Zain Jordan Mobile Com Umniah Total Frequency 550 340 310 1200 Percentage 45.9% 28.3% 25.8% 100%

It is notably that Zain Jordan has the greatest number of the customers, and this may enhance our talk about its good reputation in Jordan.

8. Hypotheses Testing
H1: Purchasing behavior of the final consumer is affected by the negative word of mouth, more than the positive word of mouth. By using (One Sample T-test) the calculated T was 7.247, greater than the standard T which was 1.96 (Sig value=0.007), therefore we accept this hypothesis which states that " Purchasing behavior of the final consumer is affected by the negative word of mouth, more than the positive word of mouth". H2: There is a significant statistically relationship between the buying decision of the final consumer, and the source of word of mouth. The results shows that word of mouth from family, friends, peers and relatives has greater impact on the buying decision than other sources such as the company staff and salesmen. Where the calculated T was 21.041 and it is larger than 1.96, which means the acceptations of the hypothesis that states " There is a significant statistically relationship between the buying decision of the final consumer and the source of word of mouth". H3: There is a significant statistically relationship between the choice of the final consumer of the services from one of the mobile communication companies, and the word of mouth transmitted from one person to another. Where the calculated T for testing this hypothesis was 25.678 and it is larger than 1.96, which means the acceptations of this hypothesis that states "There is a significant statistically relationship between the choice of the final consumer of the services from one of the mobile communication companies, and the word of mouth transmitted from one person to another".

9. Recommendations
1. Companies of all types have to be aware that word of mouth is an important part of the marketing strategy. 2. Companies must build good relations with its customers to earn their loyalty, and ensure their commitment to talk about the virtues of the company and its products in all forums. 3. Relying on word of mouth reduces marketing expenses. 4. Managers must understand that the satisfied customer can attract new customers through word of mouth.

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References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Chevalier, Judith and Mayzlin, Dina (2004). The Effects of Word of Mouth on Sales: online Book Review. JTC web site. Lake, Laura (2009). Why Word of- Mouth Marketing? Liu, Yong (2006). Word of Mouth for Movies: Its Dynamics and Impact on Box Office Revenue, Electronic ISSN: 1547-7185, Volume: 70/Issue 3, PP. 74-89. Luo, Xueming (2009). Quantifying the Long-Term Impact of Negative Word of Mouth on Cash Flows and Stock Prices, Marketing Science, Vol. 28, No. 1, January February 2009, PP. 148-165. Richins, Marsha (2009). Negative Word of- Mouth by Dissatisfied Consumers, published by American marketing association, accessed: 28/09/2//9 00:05. Sernovitz, Andy et al. (2009). Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, U.S.A.: Library of congress. Silverman, George (2002). The Secret of Word of Mouth: How to Trigger Exponential Sales, U.S.A.: Library of Congress. Steinkuehler, C. and Williams, D. (2006). Customer Satisfaction and Word of Mouth. Writz, Jochen and Chew, Patricia (2002). The Effects of Incentives Deal Satisfaction and Tie Strength on Word of Mouth Behavior, International Journal of service (13) 2. P. 141. www.zainjordan.com www.hybridcars.com

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