An empirical study on the websites service quality of Hong Kong small businesses

Abstract

This paper reports an empirical research on the service quality (SQ) of the websites of small businesses in Hong Kong. The research is based on a questionnaire survey of 124 netizens (net citizen) and a review of 30 websites in terms of 60 features related to website content. The research found that (1) about 13% of the website features are not highly expected by netizens, but most websites provide these features, (2) about 37% features are highly expected by netizens but few websites provide these features, and (3) about 50% features are in a balance, i.e. relevant expectations are provided by websites. Additionally, the research produces a ranked checklist of netizen expectations and a ranked checklist of website deliveries. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into website quality as an assessment of web site design and netizens' expectation. The implications for improving the existing websites or designing new websites for small businesses are discussed. This paper also contributes to the electronic SQ literature by employing a different approach to the dominant focus of E-S-QUAL in past studies. This paper concludes with recommendations for future research in the field of SQ in websites.