THE EFFECT OF CONSUMER CONFUSION PRONENESS ON WORD OF MOUTH, TRUST, AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Abstract

High-tech products (such as smartphones, notebooks, and tablets) have been characterized as being
increasingly similar between brands, having too many slightly different choices, and providing complex
information. In buying these products, many consumers fi nd it diffi cult to differentiate between brands, evaluate
over alternatives, and make a good purchase decision. Such situation is known as consumer confusion
phenomenon. Previous studies have revealed that consumer confusion is becoming a problem for both
consumers and marketers. However, the topic still needs further examination, especially in the context of a
developing country.
The present study aims to examine consumers’ general tendency to become confused and its effect on
word of mouth, trust and consumer satisfaction. The product context is smartphones, while the sample consists
of 150 university students who had experiences in using or buying smartphones. Nine research hypotheses
were tested using multiple regression analyses. The results indicate that only two of the three consumer
confusion dimensions (i.e. similarity confusion and overload confusion) have signifi cant negative impacts on
word of mouth, trust and consumer satisfaction. The other dimension (i.e. ambiguity confusion) was found to
have insignifi cant impacts on the three dependent variables.
Keywords: Consumer confusion, word of mouth, trust, consumer satisfaction, smartphone.