Customer perceptions of e-rvice quality in online shopping
Gwo-Guang Lee
鸡肉松的做法Department of Information Management,National Taiwan University of
Science and Technology,Taipei,Taiwan Hsiu-Fen Lin
Department of Information Management,St.John’s and St.Mary’s Institute of
Technology,Taipei,Taiwan下雪的作文
Abstract
Purpo –This paper develops a rearch model to examine the relationship among e-rvice quality dimensions and overall rvice quality,customer satisfaction and purcha intentions.
Design/methodology/approach –Data from a survey of 297online consumers were ud to test the rearch model.Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model,and the structural equation modelling technique was ud to test the rearch model.
Findings –The analytical results showed that the dimensions of web site design,reliability,responsiveness,and trust affect overall rvice quality and customer satisfaction.Moreover,the latter in turn are significantly related to customer purcha intentions.However,the personalization dimension is not significantly related to overall rvice quality and customer satisfaction.
Rearch limitations/implications –Future rearch can u different methodologies,such as longitudinal studies,focus groups and interviews,to examine the relationship between rvice quality and customer purcha behaviour in online shopping contexts.
Practical implications –This study suggests that to enhance customer purcha intentions,online stores should develop marketing strategies to better address the trustworthiness,reliability,and responsiveness of web-bad rvices.Online stores can devote valuable corporate resources to the important e-rvice quality attributes identified by this study.
Originality/value –This study developed the instrument dimensions of e-rvice quality by modifying the SERVQUAL model to consider online shopping context.Moreover,the results of this study provide a valuable reference for managers of online stores,as well as for rearchers interested in internet marketing.
Keywords Electronic commerce,Service quality assurance,Customer satisfaction,Purchasing,
Shopping,Structural analysis
Paper type Rearch paper
1.Introduction
With the rapid global growth in electronic commerce (e-commerce),business are attempting to gain a competitive advantage by using e-commerce to interact with customers.Business with the most experience and success in using e-commerce are beginning to realize that the key determinants of success or failure are not merely web site prence and low price but also include the electronic rvice quality (e-rvice quality)(Yang,2001;Zeithaml,2002).Santos (2003)defined e-rvice quality as overall customer asssment and judgment of e-rvice delivery in the virtual marketplace.
Service quality is an elusive and abstract construct that is difficult to explain and measure (Cronin and Taylor,1992).The SERVQUAL model,first developed by
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International Journal of Retail &Distribution Management Vol.33No.2,2005pp.161-176q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0959-0552
DOI 10.1108/09590550510581485
Parasuraman et al.(1988)has been widely tested as a means of measuring customer perceptions of rvice quality.The SERVQUAL model contains five dimensions,namely tangibles,reliability,responsiveness,assurance and empathy.Furthermore,during the past decade,SERVQUAL model has been tested for measuring rvice quality in e-commerce ttings (Devaraj et al.,2002;Kim and Lee,2002;Li et al.,2002;Kuo,2003;Negash et al.,2003).Previous studies on the measurement of e-rvice quality focud
only on the application of the SERVQUAL model by rewording the original scale items.However,in the rvice quality field,rvice rearchers need to pay more attention to customer evaluations of e-rvices,becau methods of measuring rvice quality differ between e-commerce and physical marketplace rvice (Parasuraman and Grewal,2000).Additionally,van Riel et al.(2001)propod that the SERVQUAL scale items would have to be reformulated before they could be ud meaningfully in the online shopping context.Thus,this study aims to identify the main influence on online shopping rvice quality,using a modified version of the SERVQUAL model.
Rearch is required on the influence of e-rvices on all customer respons,such as perceived rvice quality,customer satisfaction and purcha intentions (Parasuraman and Grewal,2000;Jeong et al.,2003).Understanding the determinants of rvice quality,customer satisfaction and purcha intentions for online shopping is important for both marketing rearchers and online stores managers.Moreover,previous studies have revealed that rvice quality in online environments is an important determinant of the effectiveness of e-commerce (Yang,2001;Janda et al.,2002).However,few studies have examined the relation among different dimensions of e-rvice quality in predicting overall rvice quality,customer satisfaction,and purcha intentions for online shopping.
This study attempts to derive the instrument dimensions of e-rvice quality through modifying the SERVQUAL model to consider the online shopping context,and develops a rearch model to examine how e-rvice quality dimensions affect overall rvice quality,customer satisfaction and purcha intentions.To prove the ufulness of the rearch model,data were collected from 297online consumers.Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model,and the structural equation modeling (SEM)technique was ud to test the rearch model,which was supported by LISREL 8.3software.The test results provide a valuable reference for managers of online stores,as well as for rearchers interested in internet marketing.
2.Literature review
2.1E-rvice quality
鲁迅的童年作文E-rvice quality can be defined as overall customer evaluations and judgments regarding the excellence and quality of e-rvice delivery in the virtual marketplace (Santos,2003).Rearch over the past two decades has demonstrated that rvice quality influences consumption decisions,but only recently the findings have been applied to e-commerce (Yang and Jun,2002;Wolfinbarger and
Gilly,2003).For example,rvice quality measures have been applied to asss the quality of virtual community web sites (Kuo,2003),satisfaction with e-commerce channels (Devaraj et al.,2002),and determinants of web site success (Liu and Arnett,2000).Online shopping is a complex process that can be divided into various sub-process such as navigation,arching for information,online transactions,or
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customer interactions.Customers are unlikely to evaluate each sub-process in detail during a single visit to an online store,but rather will perceive the rvice as an overall process and outcome(van Riel et al.,2001).Furthermore,for online customers,high standard e-rvice quality is the means by which the potential benefits of the internet can be realized(Yang,2001).Becau it is much easier to compare product technical features and prices online than through traditional channels,e-rvice quality becomes a key factor for customers(Santos,2003).Online customers thus expect equal or higher levels of rvice quality than traditional channels customers.
2.2Service quality dimensions
妈妈咪鸭
Parasuraman et al.(1988)conceptualize rvice quality as the relative perceptual distance between c
ustomer expectations and evaluations of rvice experiences and rvice quality using a multi-item scale called the SERVQUAL model.The SERVQUAL model includes thefive dimensions of tangibles(physical facilities and the appearance of personnel),reliability(ability to perform the promid rvice dependably and accurately),responsiveness(willingness to help customers and provide prompt rvice),assurance(employee knowledge ba which induces customer trust and confidence),and empathy(caring and individualized attention provided to customers by the rvice provider).
The SERVQUAL scale recently has been widely ud to measure information system rvice quality(Pitt et al.,1997;van Dyke et al.,1999;Carr,2002;Jiang et al.,2002).The SERVQUAL scale also was employed to measure e-commerce system rvice quality (Devaraj et al.,2002;Kim and Lee,2002).Related studies on e-rvice quality have tested the SERVQUAL scale and ud it to measure rvice in various contexts,including web-bad rvice(Kuo,2003;Negash et al.,2003),internet retail(Kaynama and Black, 2000;Barnes and Vidgen,2001),and electronic banking(Zhu et al.,2002).Most rearch on e-rvice quality measurement has focud on rewording the SERVQUAL scale items.However,challenges in measuring web-bad rvice quality exist due to the differences between web-bad and traditional customer rvice(Li et al.,2002).
Parasuraman and Grewal(2000)suggested that rearch is needed on whether“the definitions and relative importance of the SERVQUAL dimensions change when customers interact with technology rather than with rvice personnel”(p.171). Moreover,veral studies have propod that the SERVQUAL scale items must be reformulated before they can be meaningfully ud in the online shopping context (van Riel et al.,2001;Santos,2003).Thus,bad on the SEVQUAL model with consideration of the characteristics of the online shopping context should be partly reformulated.Additionally,previous studies have suggested that perceived rvice quality positively influences customer satisfaction and purcha intentions(Rust and Zahorik,1993;Martenn et al.,2000).Nevertheless,in the context of online shopping, few studies have examined the ufulness of relative rvice quality dimensions in predicting overall rvice quality,customer satisfaction and purcha intentions.
猕猴桃的作用和功效This study aims to:
(1)derive the instrument dimensions of e-rvice quality bad on the SERVQUAL
model and modify them following reference to the related literature on the online shopping context;and
(2)determine how the e-rvice quality dimensions affect overall rvice quality,
customer satisfaction and purcha intentions.
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e-rvice
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3.Rearch model and hypothes Becau the existing literature remains insufficient to provide a conceptual model of e-rvice quality,empirical rearch is required to clarify the detailed determinants of e-rvice quality and their influence on customer perceptions of online stores (Janda et al.,2002;Yang and Jun,2002;Santos,2003).This study propod that e-rvice quality dimensions include web site design,reliability,responsiveness,trust and
personalization,and moreover developed a rearch model for understanding the perceptions of rational customers regarding online shopping.The model propod that e-rvice quality dimensions are casually linked to the two performance measures of overall rvice quality and customer satisfaction,and in turn influence customer purcha intentions (e Figure 1).
椰蓉馅
3.1E-rvice quality dimensions
鉴真和尚This study ud the revid SERVQUAL scale items to establish dimensions of e-rvice quality through web site design,reliability,responsiveness,trust,and personalization.The relationship among the e-rvice quality dimensions,overall rvice quality and customer satisfaction is hypothesized and discusd below.
3.1.1Web site design .Web site design quality is crucial for online stores (Than and Grandon,2002).Web site design describes the appeal that ur interface design prents to customers (Kim and Lee,2002).The influence of web site design on e-rvice performance has been studied extensively.For instance,Cho and Park (2001)conducted an empirical rearch of a sample of 435internet urs to examine the e-commerce ur-consumer satisfaction index (ECUSI)for internet shopping.They found that the customer satisfaction is assd using the quality of web site design.A recent empirical study found that web site design factors are strong predictors of customer quality judgments,satisfaction,and loyalty for internet retailers (Wolfinbarger and Gilly,2003).Hence,the following hypothes are propod.
H1a.Web site design in an online store positively influences overall rvice quality.H1b.Web site design in an online store positively influences customer satisfaction.
3.1.2Reliability .Reliability reprents the ability of the web site to fulfill orders correctly,deliver promptly,and keep personal information cure (Parasuraman et al.,1988;Janda et al.,2002;Kim and Lee,2002).The importance of
Figure 1.
Rearch
model
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reliability has been emphasized by the information technology-bad rvice. Moreover,Zhu et al.(2002)argued that reliability dimension has a direct positive effect on perceived rvice quality and customer satisfaction by electronic banking systems.Online stores must provide mistake-free rvice and cure online transactions to make customers feel comfortable using online shopping.The following hypothes thus are propod.
H2a.Reliability in an online store positively influences overall rvice quality.
H2b.Reliability in an online store positively influences customer satisfaction.
3.1.3Responsiveness.Customers expect online stores to respond to their inquires promptly(Liao and Cheung,2002).Responsiveness describes how often an online store voluntarily provides ustomer inquires,information retrieval and navigation speed)that are important to its customers(Parasuraman et al.,1988;Yang, 2001;Kim and Lee,2002).Rearchers examining the res
ponsiveness of web-bad rvices have highlighted the importance of perceived rvice quality and customer satisfaction(Yang and Jun,2002;Zhu et al.,2002).The following hypothes thus are propod.
H3a.Responsiveness design in an online store positively influences overall rvice quality.
H3b.Responsiveness in an online store positively influences customer satisfaction.
3.1.4Trust.Online shopping context compris the interaction customers and online stores(Bakos,1991).Numerous studies have emphasized the importance of online trust between customers and online stores(McKnight et al.,2002;Krauter and Kaluscha, 2003).Trust is a significant antecedent of participation in commerce generally,and especially in online ttings becau of the incread ea with which online stores can behave opportunistically(Reichheld and Schefter,2000).Moreover,trust is defined as customer willingness to accept vulnerability in an online transaction bad on their positive expectations regarding future online store behaviours(Kimery and McCard, 2002).That is,trust encourages online customer purchasing activity and affects customer attitudes toward purchasing from an online store(Gefen,2000;Gefen et al., 2003).Conquently,the following hypothes are propod.
H4a.Trust in an online store positively influences overall rvice quality.
H4b.Trust in an online store positively influences customer satisfaction.
3.1.5Personalization.The lack of real-time interaction tends to prevent potential customers from purchasing through online shopping(Yang and Jun,2002). Personalization involves individualized attention,personal thank you notes from online stores,and the availability of a message area for customer questions or comments(Yang,2001).Previous studies have examined the influence of the customer rvice provided by internet retailers on customer perceptions of rvice quality and satisfaction(Wolfinbarger and Gilly,2003).The following hypothes are propod.
H5a.Personalization in an online store positively influences overall rvice quality.
H5b.Personalization in an online store positively influences customer satisfaction.
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e-rvice
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