The Impact of Word-of-Mouth Communication on Consumer Choices and Satisfaction: An Empirical Study of Students' Perspective.

With the number of existing studies and the contradiction of their conclusions about the word-ofmouth (WOM) phenomenon, there is a need to develop an all-embracing model capable of integrating prior findings and identifying future postulates. Therefore, this study explores the impact of WOM communication on students' choice of university and satisfaction. The following work discusses the effect of WOM on students' decision-making in the context of the likelihood elaboration model (ELM). Data was collected from the general population of 160000 students from different Georgia universities. We utilized deductive reasoning and quantitative and qualitative strategies such as focus groups followed by larger-scale surveys. We found that students are more inclined to choose the university when they are sure about WOM message source credibility and the quality of the message being transmitted. On the contrary, the mentioned WOM features do not persuade them to form a strong reputation for the university.