Investigating the intention to purchase digital items in social networking communities: A customer value perspective

Some social networking community service providers have earned revenue by selling digital items to their community members. We examined SNC member decisions to purchase digital items based on customer value theory. Six factors were extracted from three dimensions of customer value: functional, social, and emotional value. Our findings indicated that the effects of value on member purchase intentions were significant in terms of the emotional and social dimensions. Our results should help SNC providers by improving their sales of digital items.     

A methodology to map customer complaints and measure customer satisfaction and loyalty

In this study, an analysis was conducted for the relationships between the main components of customer relationship management (CRM) and customer complaints in the domain of logistics and transport. Today, complaints and the handling of complaints play a pivotal role in customer relationships. Moreover, companies are reluctant to admit that they have difficulties with customers’ complaints, but as yet there appears to be no complete solution to this issue. To remedy this situation, customer complaints must be comprehensively collected and analysed. Issues must be classified, and timely solutions must be developed. In this paper, a conceptual framework is proposed including mathematical models, hypothesised relationships, perceived value and interactivity between customer, business and the system, as well as customer satisfaction analytics. The framework will address the relationship between customer satisfaction issues, loyalty and customer acquisition and estimate customer satisfaction and loyalty. For the purpose of analysis, this study uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. For data collection, a survey questionnaire was distributed to 60 Fremantle Port logistics and transport customers. For the quantitative approach, linear and nonlinear modelling is adopted. Using the model, we are able to address the shortcomings of CRM technology, and tackle the issues of loyalty improvement and customer acquisition. Finally, based on nonlinear modelling and using a fuzzy inference system, namely the Takagi–Sugeno-type approach, we defined fuzzy rules, by means of which we ascertain the relationship between customer satisfaction and the main relevant variables.     

Application of traditional system design techniques to web site design

After several decades of computer program construction there emerged a set of principles that provided guidance to produce more manageable programs. With the emergence of the plethora of Internet web sites one wonders if similar guidelines are followed in their construction. Since this is a new technology no apparent universally accepted methods have emerged to guide the designer in Web site construction. This paper reviews the traditional principles of structured programming and the preferred characteristics of Web sites. Finally a mapping of how the traditional guidelines may be applied to Web site construction is presented. The application of the traditional principles of structured programming to the design of a Web site can provide a more usable site for the visitors to the site. The additional benefit of using these time-honored techniques is the creation of a Web site that will be easier to maintain by the development staff.     

Are customer satisfaction and customer loyalty drivers of customer lifetime value in mobile data services: a comparative cross-country study

Many research papers have been published on the effect of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on customer profitability which is related to customer lifetime value (CLV). However, there is limited research on the impact of cross-cultural factors on the effect of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on CLV. This study aims to fill this gap. Focusing on the usage of mobile data services, 846 samples from China and 689 from the US are obtained. Data analysis suggests that customer loyalty is a driver of CLV, while customer satisfaction is not. This research has important implications for firms about how to enhance CLV in mobile data services.     

Predicting web site audience demographics using content and design cues

The size and dynamism of the Web pose challenges for all its stakeholders, which include producers and consumers of content as well as advertisers who want to place advertisements next to relevant content. A critical piece of information for producers/publishers of content as well as advertisers is the demographics of the consumers who are likely to visit a given web site. In this article we explore predictive models that attempt to deduce the demographics of the audience of a web site using cues embedded in the design or the content of its homepage. We find that it is possible to effectively predict different types of demographics of consumers of web sites on the basis of the suggested approach. Through a statistical analysis we observe that several design elements and the content differ significantly among web sites dominated by consumers of different demographic classes. We also suggest the use of an ensemble classifier that combines the content and design cues with the goal of further improving the prediction performance.     

An empirical study on Web-based services and customer loyalty

E-business success is tied to the ability to foster customer loyalty. Businesses that deliver superior value derived from excellent services and quality products are likely to win customer loyalty. This paper examines Web-based services and the effects of three sets of factors: pre-purchase, transaction-related, and post-purchase services on customer loyalty (measured as repeat purchase intention from a given Web-based store) in a business-to-consumer environment. Based on the study's results, pre-purchase services that support search and evaluation of products replete in e-commerce systems have limited effect on customer loyalty. Among transaction-related services, transparency of the billing mechanism positively impacts customer loyalty. Customers shun any hidden costs associated with product acquisition. Post-purchase services consisting of support of order tracking, on-time delivery, and customer support positively influence customer loyalty. These findings imply that Web-based stores need to pay more attention to post-purchase services in their strategy to retain customers. This is what will keep customers satisfied and willing to continue the relationship with a company over the long term.     

The effect of web advertising visual design on online purchase intention: An examination across gender

With web advertising growing to be a huge industry, it is important to understand the effectiveness of web advertisement. In this study we investigate the effects of web advertising visual design (WAVD) purchasing intention within the framework of an integrated model. Nine hypotheses were developed and tested on a dataset of 316 observations collected via a questionnaire survey. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that while web advertising visual cues influence consumers' purchasing intention through advertising attitudes and brand attitudes, they do not have direct effects on purchasing intention. Further results on the moderating role of gender suggest that web advertising visual cues have direct effect on consumers' purchasing intention for male groups but not for female groups. This study contributes to the understanding the role of visual dimensions in forming online purchase intentions.     

Applying relationship theories to web site design: development and validation of a site-communality scale

Our study investigates whether relationship theories can be of help in designing web sites which foster greater customer loyalty. Based on literature reviews of Communal-Relationship Theory from Social Psychology, communality from marketing research and related concepts (e.g. commercial friendships), we develop and refine a multidimensional measure of 'site communality' using a sample of 305 participants. Each visited one among several real web sites chosen across three industries (i.e. banking, pharmaceuticals and insurance). We define site communality as the extent to which web site content signals that a company's relationship with its customers goes beyond the formal, 'tit for tat' business dealings that are typically expected from purely commercial exchanges, and instead, more closely abide by the norms and behaviours evocative of friendships and/or family relations. Our results indicate that demonstration of caring, role spanning and authenticity/genuineness are its most important dimensions. Preliminary, findings also show that site communality is positively related to the benevolence dimension of online trust which is an important antecedent of loyalty. The practical implications of our study are discussed in the form of recommendations to help companies in designing web sites high in site communality.     

Articulation of web site design constraints: Effects of the task and designers’ expertise

This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the cognitive activities of web site designers and, more precisely, their articulation and satisfaction of various design constraints. In this paper, we first present an experiment in which professional and novice designers have to evaluate a web site developed for reflecting usability errors identified in web sites. Then, the results obtained in this evaluation task are compared with results previously obtained in a design task, in which professional and novice designers had to create a web site. Data analyses focused on the number and nature of constraints articulated by designers in these two types of tasks (evaluation vs design). In particular, we distinguished constraints linked with the client of the site and constraints linked with the future web users. The obtained results show effects of both the level of expertise and the task. While designing, all of the designers focused mainly on constraints linked with the client. In contrast, while evaluating the web site, novices focused on constraints linked with the user, whereas professionals shared their attention between these two kinds of constraints (client vs user-oriented constraints). Based on these results, we conclude with ways for supporting designers’ activities.     

Comparing the effects of website quality on customer initial purchase and continued purchase at e-commerce websites

To succeed in the highly competitive e-commerce environment, it is vital to understand the impact of website quality in enhancing customer conversion and retention. Although numerous contingent website attributes have been identified in the extant website quality studies, there is no unified framework to classify these attributes and no comparison done between customer conversion and retention according to the different website quality attributes and their varying impact. This study adopts the model of Information Systems (IS) success by DeLone and McLean to provide a parsimonious and unified view of website quality, and compares the impact of website quality on intention of initial purchase with that on intention of continued purchase. With the proposed framework, we seek to understand how a company can increase customer conversion and/or retention. Our findings demonstrate the strength of our framework in explaining the impact of website quality on intention to purchase on the Web, and that website quality constructs exert different impact on intention of initial purchase and intention of continued purchase. The results suggest that an online company should focus on system quality to increase customer conversion, and on service quality for customer retention.     

Virtual Customer Assistants in finance: From state of the art and practices to design guidelines

Virtual Customer Assistants (VCAs) are revolutionizing the way users interact with machines. VCAs allow a far more natural interaction, and are gaining an increasingly large role in customer service. The financial domain is especially susceptible of this change, because customer care is of paramount importance. Furthermore, VCAs have the potential of supporting customers in performing routine operations such as money transfers, or in more complex decision-making operations such as trading stocks, both of which require that VCAs display strong reliability. This survey has a two-fold goal. First, we perform an analysis of the state of the art and practices of VCAs in the financial domain. Second, we provide a sort of toolbox that collects the best practices for designing and developing a VCA in the financial domain, guaranteeing a high-quality user experience.     

Virtual communities: A marketing perspective

Increasingly, consumers interact through the Internet to share their knowledge, experiences, and opinions. Consequently, ‘word-of-mouse’ has become a significant market force that influences consumer decision-making. On the basis of extensive quantitative and qualitative research, the authors sketch how consumers make use of virtual communities as social and information networks, and how this affects their decision-making processes. We present three studies that address (i) determinants and effects of virtual community influence on the consumer decision process; (ii) virtual community participation patterns; and (iii) discussion practices of the most active community members. Key implications for managers, marketers, and market researchers are discussed.     

电子商务网站优化综合决策支持系统设计研究

商务网站的质量直接影响到企业在电子市场环境的竞争力,因而如何改进与优化电子商务网站结构成为一个人们十分关注的问题.初步设计了一个电子商务网站优化综合决策支持系统模型(ECWSOSDSS),并提出系统模型应具有的技术特点及主要功能.其目的在于为电子商务网站管理员提供智能化的网站维护的决策支持工具.该系统模型可以为电子商务企业、网站管理员识别网站的优化因素、优化方案的选择及决策提供系统化的技术手段和方法.     

Customer satisfaction and loyalty analysis with classification algorithms and Structural Equation Modeling

Businesses can maintain their effectiveness as long as they have satisfied and loyal customers. Customer relationship management provides significant advantages for companies especially in gaining competitiveness. In order to reach these objectives primarily companies need to identify and analyze their customers. In this respect, effective communication and commitment to customers and changing market conditions is of great importance to increase the level of satisfaction and loyalty. To evaluate this situation, level of customer satisfaction and loyalty should be measured correctly with a comprehensive approach. In this study, customers are investigated in 4 main groups according to their level of satisfaction and loyalty with a criteria and group based analysis with a new method. We use classification algorithms in WEKA programming software and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with LISREL tools together to analyze the effect of each satisfaction and loyalty criteria in a satisfaction–loyalty matrix and extend the customer satisfaction and loyalty post-analysis research bridging the gap in this field of research. To convert developed conceptual thought to experimental study, white goods industry is exemplified. 15 criteria are used for evaluation in 4 customer groups and a satisfaction–loyalty survey developed by experts is applied to 200 customers with face-to-face interviews. As a result of the study, a customer and criteria grouping method is created with high performance classification methods and good fit structural models. In addition, results are evaluated for developing a customer strategy improvement tool considering method outcomes.     

Modeling partial customer churn: On the value of first product-category purchase sequences

Retaining customers has been considered one of the most critical challenges among those included in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), particularly in the grocery retail sector. In this context, an accurate prediction whether or not a customer will leave the company, i.e. churn prediction, is crucial for companies to conduct effective retention campaigns. This paper proposes to include in partial churn detection models the succession of first products’ categories purchased as a proxy of the state of trust and demand maturity of a customer towards a company in grocery retailing. Motivated by the importance of the first impressions and risks experienced recently on the current state of the relationship, we model the first purchase succession in chronological order as well as in reverse order, respectively. Due to the variable relevance of the first customer–company interactions and of the most recent interactions, these two variables are modeled by considering a variable length of the sequence. In this study we use logistic regression as the classification technique. A real sample of approximately 75,000 new customers taken from the data warehouse of a European retail company is used to test the proposed models. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and 1%, 5% and 10% percentiles lift are used to assess the performance of the partial-churn prediction models. The empirical results reveal that both proposed models outperform the standard RFM model.     

Agent-based communities of web services: an argumentation-driven approach

The objective of this paper is to discuss how to sustain the growth of Web services through the use of communities. A community aims at gathering Web services with the same functionality independently of their origins, locations, and functioning. To make Web services more responsive to the environment in which they run and to be more flexible when managing communities, Web services are associated with software agents enhanced with argumentation capacities. This type of agents persuade and negotiate with other peers for the sake of letting their respective Web services reach their goals in an efficient way. Associating Web services with this type of agents allows them to select good communities and allow the communities to host the good Web services and to select the best ones for composite scenarios. Furthermore, this provides satisfactory solutions for three open problems: starvation (Web services refuse all the possibilities of joining communities), competition-free (Web services accept joining any community without being selective), and unfairness (always the same Web services members of a community are selected out of many others to participate in composite scenarios). In addition, the paper presents a formal and computational persuasive and negotiation protocol to manage the attraction and retainment of Web services in the communities and their identification for composite services.     

Business customer communities and knowledge sharing: exploratory study of critical issues

Businesses in knowledge intensive industries must appropriately engage with their customers in order to produce goods and services that are desired and valued in the marketplace. Engagement with customers calls for exchanging information and knowledge with customers and fostering exchanges between customers. Recent developments in the area of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have radically increased the variety of opportunities for improving customer engagement. In this paper, we will examine the use of ICTs to build Business Customer Communities (BCCs) to help an organization foster knowledge exchanges between its professional and institutional customers. We define BCCs as groups of business customers, which are deliberately enabled by a firm and share a long-term need to exchange work related knowledge through online and offline interaction. The objectives of this study are (1) to describe BCCs and outline their attributes and features, and (2) to contribute to the understanding of challenges associated with the enabling of BCC formation and how firms can overcome these challenges. As such, a contribution is made to the discussion of knowing in practice in customer communities, which rely in large part on ICT.     

Measuring the efficiency of customer satisfaction and loyalty for mobile phone brands with DEA

The concept of customer satisfaction and loyalty (CS&L) has attracted much attention in recent years. A key motivation for the fast growing emphasis on CS&L can be attributed to the fact that higher customer satisfaction and loyalty can lead to stronger competitive position resulting in larger market share and profitability. Using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, in this study we analyzed and compared CS&L efficiency for mobile phone brands in an emerging telecommunication market, Turkey. The constructs of European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model are treated and used as input and output indicators of our DEA model. Drawing on the perceptual responses of 251 mobile phone users, the DEA models reveal that from the top six mobile phone brands in Turkey, Nokia features as the most efficient brand followed by LG and Sonny Ericsson in terms of CS&L efficiency, while Motorola, Samsung and Panasonic rank as the least efficient brands.