Exploring the influence of personal schema on trust transfer and switching costs in brick-and-click bookstores

Due to competition, most firms try to retain and lock in customers; this is likely to ensure a greater market profit than that gained by acquiring new customers. While many studies have investigated customer satisfaction and retention in online and offline firms, scant research exists on customer satisfaction and customer retention in the context of brick-and-click firms: i.e., those that conduct business both online and in stores. Such firms encourage trust transfer among their customers. However, most studies have failed to consider the role of personal schema in trust transfer. Based on social exchange, investment, and information integration theories, we analyzed the impact of trust transfer, switching costs, and personal schema on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions in the context of an offline bookstore that has now launched an online business. Our results indicated that trust transfer and switching costs had a small effect on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions. Personal schema, however, affected both customer satisfaction and repurchase intention.     

再多一次接触:顾客反馈机制对服务失败后顾客评价的影响

It is difficult to control service quality for any service firm and service failure is inevitable due to human or non-human factors. As a result, service recovery stirred the interest of researchers and practitioners. However, service failure may not be identified by firms because a majority of dissatisfied customers will not complain to the service provider. Thus, this research proposes a proactive customer feedback mechanism comprised of proactive solicitation of customer feedback, customers providing feedback and follow-up communication and examine their impact of customer evaluations in the context of service failure. This research tries to establish that through adding a continuous series of satisfied service encounters or "moment of truth" to service failure encounters, the customer evaluations (e.g. satisfaction, trust, purchase intent and positive WOM) toward the service will be significantly improved. Our research employed a 2×2×2 between subjects experimental design. Three independent variables were manipulated as presence and absence level, that is, firms either proactively solicitted customer feedback or employed no solicitation of feedback, Customers either provided feedback to the service firm or refused to provide feedback, and service firm either conducted follow-up communication or no follow-up communication. Our research adoptted a scenario in the context of patronizing a three-star hotel on a business trip. In total, 221 business administration graduates from a famous university in Shanghai participated in the experiment. MANOVA was used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that proactive solicitation significantly influenced trust (p<0.01). Besides satisfaction, the other dependent variables such as trust, purchase intent and positive WOM significantly differred between with and without follow-up communication groups (p<0.05). Third, a significant difference was detected regarding satisfaction, trust, purchase intent and positive WOM between customer providing feedback groups and no customer feedback groups (p<0.05). Moreover, significant interactive effects were found of customers provided feedback and follow-up communication on trust and purchase intent. Trust and purchase intent reached highest when a follow-up communication occurred after customers provided feedback. However, no interactive effects were found of proactive solicitation of customer feedback and customer providing feedback. This research suggests that service providers should create new encounters with customers when they are confronted with service failure, and in this study, through proactive customer feedback mechanism. That is, first, the service provider should encourage customers to provide feedback, which can improve customer evaluations after service failure and after customers providing feedback. At the same time, the firm should employ follow-up communication with the customer and inform them about how the firm responded to their complaints, suggestions and comments. It is worth to note that companies just need to have follow-up communication with those customers who have provided feedback. More important, as information technology and internet prevails, it is very likely sending email and short messages after a service failure to maintain customer relationships could significantly enhance customer evaluations of the service provider. Of course, how consumers respond to such measures online is an promising research area and needs further investigation.     

Determinants of repurchase intention in online group-buying: The perspectives of DeLone & McLean IS success model and trust

The purpose of this study is to propose a theoretical model to examine the antecedents of repurchase intention in online group-buying by integrating the perspective of DeLone & McLean IS success model and the literature of trust. The model was tested using the data collected from 253 customers of a group-buying website in Taiwan. The results show that satisfaction with website, satisfaction with sellers, and perceived quality of website have positive influences on repurchase intention, while perceived quality of website and perceived quality of sellers have significant impacts on satisfaction with website and satisfaction with sellers, respectively. The results also show that trust in website has positive influences on perceived quality of website and satisfaction with website, whereas trust in sellers influence perceived quality of sellers and satisfaction with sellers significantly. Finally, the results show that perceived size of website has positive influence on trust in website, while reputation of website and reputation of sellers significantly affect trust in website and trust in sellers, respectively. The implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

The Relative Importance of Website Design Quality and Service Quality in Determining Consumers’ Online Repurchase Behavior

Abstract

Previous studies have found that website design quality is one main factor affecting consumers' initial online purchase behavior. For consumers' repurchase behavior, in addition to website design quality, service quality is another important factor. Which factor is more important in determining consumers' repurchase intention? Our results show that, compared with website design quality, service quality has significantly stronger effects on consumers' trust and satisfaction, both of which lead to their repurchase intention.     

Examining customers’ trust in online vendors and their dropout decisions: An empirical study

Customer dropouts represent a critical challenge to online vendors and have severely constrained the proliferation of electronic retailing, which greatly depends on the customer eventually clicking on the “confirm purchase” button. In this study, we investigate the relationship between customers’ trust in an online vendor and their dropouts in different stages of the purchase process. Using a well-established consumer decision-making process, we analyze salient online trust antecedents for each purchase stage, develop specific hypotheses, and test them empirically. Our results suggest that customers’ trust in an online vendor has significant effects on their decisions to exit from the vendor’s website, and that salient trust antecedents vary in different stages of the consumer decision process. According to our findings, customers by and large depend on general, subjective antecedents pertaining to personal traits or perceptions about the website’s ease of use to assess the trustworthiness of an online vendor in the early stages but focus on specific, objective, transaction-oriented antecedents directly related to their purchase decision making in the later stages. Our results have important implications for research and practice which are also discussed in the paper.     

Feedback mechanisms and consumer satisfaction,trust and repurchase intention in online retail

We introduce a key construct, perceived effectiveness of feedback mechanisms (PEFMs), to analyze moderating effects of PEFMs on the relationship between consumers’ satisfaction, trust, and repurchase intention. We find that (1) PEFMs negatively moderate the satisfaction–trust relationship; (2) PEFMs positively moderate the trust–repurchase intention relationship; (3) provider recommendations and customer reviews are complementary with customers’ trust but can substitute for prior experience with products.     

How virtual community participation influences consumer loyalty intentions in online shopping contexts: an investigation of mediating factors

Extant studies generally recognise that virtual community building is an effective marketing programme for forging deep and enduring affective bonds with consumers. This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that investigates key mediating processes (via trust, satisfaction and identification) that underlie the relationship between virtual community participation and consumer loyalty intentions. The authors test the hypotheses using data obtained from three large online retailing stores. Virtual community participation significantly enhances loyalty intentions, through both social mechanisms (via community identification) and psychological mechanisms (via trust and satisfaction). Moreover, the findings provide insights into the complex relationship between the two mechanisms in online shopping settings. Community identification is a pivotal factor for enhancing customer loyalty intentions. The results advance understanding of the process by which virtual community building facilitates the development of business-to-consumer relationships in the computer-mediated environment. The authors discuss the managerial implications of the findings, as well as avenues for further research.     

Factors influencing consumers’ repurchase behavior on fresh food e-commerce platforms: An empirical study

The e-commerce of fresh commodities keeps being adaptive to the change of consumer consumption attitudes and behavior in the current era of global economy. In the fierce competition of the industry, how to attract and retain customers more efficiently and increase consumer repurchase behavior is a long-term concern for fresh food e-commerce platforms. This research aims to focus on how the fresh e-commerce platforms can reduce consumer conversion to other forms of purchase and increase consumer repurchase. In this paper a research model is constructed whereby a set of perceived value scales is generated to evaluate consumer repurchase behavior. Data from a sample of 515 consumers is collected through a web-based questionnaire, and structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses and empirically investigate the factors and internal mechanisms influencing repurchase behavior on fresh e-commerce platforms. Results from the analysis show that the product quality and product price from the product-side, perceived ease of use, reliability, response speed and convenience from the service-side, and subjective norms of the consumer personal factors impose significant effects on consumer satisfaction. consumer satisfaction plays a key mediating role in consumer repurchase behavior. Guidance and suggestions for the operation processes of e-commerce platforms are developed based on these key factors to cultivate customer loyalty and attract potential customers more specifically. Moreover, the examination of the factors from the three dimensions promotes the e-commerce platforms to raise their service level by enhancing their supply chain as the bottom rocks of the platform enterprises.     

Online consumer retention: contingent effects of online shopping habit and online shopping experience

In this study, we further develop the information systems continuance model in the context of online shopping, using a contingency theory that accounts for the roles of online shopping habit and online shopping experience. Specifically, we argue and empirically demonstrate that although conceptually distinct, online shopping habit and online shopping experience have similar effects on repurchase intention. They both have positive mediated effects through satisfaction and moderate the relationship between satisfaction and online repurchase intention. The results of a survey study involving 122 online customers provide strong support for our research model. We also identify after-sale service, transaction efficiency, security, convenience, and cost savings as important online shopping usefulness drivers. Theoretical and practical implications include establishing a contingency theory to more fully explain online customer retention as well as guidelines for development of customer relationship management initiatives.     

Understanding customers' loyalty intentions towards online shopping: an integration of technology acceptance model and fairness theory

As with any other information system (IS), the success of online shopping depends largely on customer satisfaction and other factors that will eventually increase customers' loyalty intentions. This article integrates two major variables of technology acceptance model (TAM), trust, and fairness to construct a model for investigating the motivations behind customers' loyalty intentions towards online shopping. The hypothesised model is validated empirically using data collected from 311 customers of an online shopping store. The results indicated that distributive, procedural and interactional fairness were strong predictors of trust, which in turn influenced satisfaction. Distributive fairness and interactional fairness exhibited significant positive effects on satisfaction. Perceived usefulness and satisfaction influenced loyalty intention towards online shopping. Perceived ease of use acts indirectly on loyalty intention through the mediating effect of perceived usefulness. Implications for theory and practice and future research directions are discussed.     

Investigating the nonlinear and conditional effects of trust—The new role of institutional contexts in online repurchase

Trust is paramount to developing and maintaining long-term relationships in all stages of the customer lifecycle, including the repurchase stage. This research goes beyond the simple finding documented in the extant trust literature that the effect of trust will diminish. It sheds light on the role of institutional contexts and develops a nuanced understanding of the boundary conditions under which trust operates in the repurchase stage, where knowledge-based trust becomes more predominant. Drawing on a different theoretical tenet, prospect theory, we find that customers exhibit distinctively different transaction intentions in the two perceptual conditions of high and low trust in institutional contexts. Specifically, the nonlinear relationship between trust and repeat online transaction intention is inverted U-shaped curvilinear when trust in institutional contexts is high, but is U-shaped when trust in institutional contexts is low. With data collected from both e-commerce and mobile banking contexts using two different measures of institutional contexts, we employed a new and advanced latent moderated structural (LMS) equations approach for analysis and provided robust results. Our findings largely confirm the hypotheses and offer theoretical, methodological, and practical implications.     

FCM-based customer expectation-driven service dispatch system

Maintaining long-term customer loyalty has been an important issue in the service industry. Although customer satisfaction can be enhanced with better service quality, delivering appropriate services to customers poses challenges to service providers, particularly in real-time and resource-limited dynamic service contexts. However, customer expectation management has been regarded as an effective way for helping service providers achieve high customer satisfaction in the real world that is nevertheless less real-time and dynamic. This study designs a FCM-based customer expectation-driven service dispatch system to empower providers with the capability to deal effectively with the problem of delivering right services to right customers in right contexts. Our evaluation results show that service providers can make appropriate decisions on service dispatch for customers by effectively managing customer expectations and arranging their contextual limited resources and time via the proposed service dispatch system. Meanwhile, customers can receive suitable service and obtain high satisfaction when appropriate services are provided. Accordingly, a high-performance ecosystem can be established by both service providers and customers who co-create value in the dynamic service contexts.     

Recovery of online service: Perceived justice and transaction frequency

Recovery of online service is an issue in need of study. The current study empirically examines (1) the relationships among perceived justice, satisfaction with recovery of online service and repurchase intention of online service/failure encounters; and (2) the moderating effects of transaction frequency on these relationships. The current study collects 187 self-administered questionnaires to gather customers’ perceptions of actual online service/failure encounters. Research findings demonstrate that distributive justice, interactional justice and procedural justice can positively lead to satisfaction with recovery of online service and repurchase intention toward online service. These results further show that customers with low transaction frequency tend to focus more on interactional justice to establish their satisfaction with recovery of online service. On the other hand, customers with high transaction frequency focus more on procedural justice.     

Which is more important in Internet shopping,perceived price or trust?

Price and trust are considered to be two important factors that influence customer purchasing decisions in Internet shopping. This paper examines the relative influence they have on online purchasing decisions for both potential and repeat customers. The knowledge of their relative impacts and changes in their relative roles over customer transaction experience is useful in developing customized sales strategies to target different groups of customers. The results of this study revealed that perceived trust exerted a stronger effect than perceived price on purchase intentions for both potential and repeat customers of an online store. The results also revealed that perceived price exerted a stronger influence on purchase decisions of repeat customers as compared to that of potential customers. Perceived trust exerted a stronger influence on purchase decisions of potential customers as compared to that of repeat customers.     

The effect of pre- and post-service performance on consumer evaluation of online retailers

This study examines the effect of consumers' pre- and post-service encounter performance (SEP) on their satisfaction and repurchase intention in online markets. Specifically, we suggest that, in an online context, the different service performances: pre- and post-Service over time, affects consumer evaluation (i.e., overall satisfaction and repurchase intention) of a vendor. We introduce the experience-dissonance process in this research by integrating cognitive consistency theory as well as expectation-confirmation theory in order to investigate the consumer satisfaction formation processes in online transactions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The role of social media in enhancing guanxi and perceived effectiveness of E-commerce institutional mechanisms in online marketplace

This study extends literature on e-commerce trust and repurchase intentions by exploring the role of swift guanxi and the perceived effectiveness of institutional mechanisms (PEEIM) in the context of a Chinese e-marketplace – Taobao. We explore how Taobao’s social media technologies (online reviews and instant messenger) can improve swift guanxi and PEEIM by increasing online interactivity and presence. We find that buyers’ PEEIM negatively moderates trust in online sellers and repurchase intentions. We show that swift guanxi, created by social media’s interactivity and presence, enhances trust, which further increases repurchase intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

酒店网上预定功能的实现

在网络逐步普及的时代,营利性酒店如何利用网站平台来推销自己,方便顾客的同时为酒店带来更多的营利已成为大中型酒店急需解决的问题。酒店网站使酒店能够以轻松的操作,在线、实时地进行网站的管理工作,客户也可以即时浏览到最新的网站信息,能为客户提供细致入微的服务。强大的后台应用功能,充分把握客户的最新需求,为宾馆权利打造成功互联网业务平台。     

An investigation of the effect of online consumer trust on expectation, satisfaction, and post-expectation

This study proposes a framework regarding the relationship between consumer trust, satisfaction, expectation, and post-expectation in the context of electronic commerce. In particular, the framework draws together from three theories: social exchange theory, expectation-confirmation theory, and post-acceptance model of IS continuance. Following the longitudinal pre-purchase and post-purchase stages, this study provides a theoretical framework combining trust, expectation, satisfaction, and post-expectation (i.e., perceived usefulness) and tests the proposed model empirically using Internet consumer behavior data collected via two rounds of Web surveys. The empirical findings suggest that both consumer’s trust and expectation have positive influences on consumer’s satisfaction; a significant and positive relationship is detected between consumer’s trust and expectation; customer’s satisfaction and perceived usefulness as post-expectation belief are important predictors of repurchase intention. In consequence, the study provides a framework explaining the subsequent relationships of trust, expectation, confirmation, satisfaction, post-expectation, and repurchase intention (i.e., consumer trust → expectation → confirmation → satisfaction → post-expectation → repurchase intention) across pre-purchase and post-purchase stages. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Online customer service and emotional labor: An exploratory study

The recent growth of service industries as well as the rise of e-commerce has increased the number of online customer service workers. Research on face-to-face service work has shown that these workers are expected to display certain emotions in the course of their work, a phenomenon known as emotional labor. However, little is known about emotional communication among online customer service workers. We explored emotional labor in an online context by examining the degree of emotional presence in mediated service interactions and its relationship with workers' acting strategies (i.e., surface acting, deep acting). Further, we examined if emotional presence and acting strategies predict job satisfaction as well as burnout. Data collected from 130 online customer service workers indicated that they perceive the highest emotional presence in phone conversations, followed by email and chat. Although there was little relationship between emotional presence and acting strategies, those who engage in surface acting are less satisfied with their job and more likely to experience burnout. In addition, those who feel a higher degree of emotional presence over the phone tend to experience higher job satisfaction and less burnout. These findings suggest that online customer service workers also engage in emotional labor.