Purpose As nutrition apps increasingly shape young consumers’ daily health management, sustaining customer satisfaction remains a challenge. This study aims to examine how perceived competence predominance relative to warmth influences satisfaction with nutrition apps and whether this effect is strengthened by self-focus framing. Design/methodology/approach Three popular nutrition apps, MyFitnessPal, Lose It! and Fitbit, were identified through a preliminary survey of 305 young consumers aged 18–26. A total of 146,661 user reviews of these apps were collected over a 30-month period. Using a data-mining approach, a balanced subsample of 18,000 reviews was analysed. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software was used to extract language-based constructs, followed by regression analyses to test the hypotheses. Findings Customer satisfaction is higher when nutrition apps are perceived as competence- predominant rather than warmth-predominant. This positive relationship is stronger among consumers who adopt a self-focus framing of their app experiences. Research limitations/implications This research contributes to the literature on the stereotype content model and customer satisfaction in the context of consumer–technology-enabled health service interactions. Practical implications The findings provide practical guidance for designing and marketing nutrition apps targeting young consumers, indicating that emphasising competence-related cues and self-focused framing in apps can enhance customer satisfaction. Originality/value By integrating the stereotype content model with construal level theory, this research clarifies the role of social cognition and psychological framing in shaping satisfaction with nutrition apps.
Guo et al. (Wed,) studied this question.