Make it Fun But Also Functional: An Attribute-Specific and Dynamic Perspective on E-Service Quality

Abstract

Managers are under increased pressure to verify the return on their quality investments. This is especially true for e-service providers given the highly competitive market dynamics in the Internet. Here, increasing customer satisfaction is pivotal for firm performance. Yet, being faced with limited resources to spend, valid and attribute-specific implications on how to allocate resources for enhancing satisfaction are most important. By investigating the type of effects of quality on satisfaction, our findings help to prioritize attributes that boost satisfaction and avoid overspendings on attributes with decreasing returns on quality. Moreover, we explore dynamic shifts in the effect direction and intensity a service quality attribute has on customer satisfaction in the Internet. By applying a time-based cohort analysis in two different e-service settings, a stable pattern of effect dynamics of service quality on satisfaction is identified. Both results are vital for e-service managers as they help to improve the efficiency of service quality enhancing activities in the Internet.