With the growth of internet usage, the world nowadays is increasingly dependent on the technology-facilitated transactions. Customers interact more with technology instead of interacting with firm’s employee to create an outcome (Meuter et al. 2000: 1). Customer Self service technology allows the customer to perform the service himself without interference of service personnel for example Federal Express package Tracking and online brokerage services. Robertson ; Shaw, 2005 :2)the combination between technology and self services is believed to “to transform the service economy in much the same way that mass production transformed manufacturing, by allowing services to be delivered at low cost in large volumes” (Salomann et al. 2006:3).
There's a specialist from your university waiting to help you with that essay.
Tell us what you need to have done now!
order now
The growth of information technology leads to growing number of websites, customers will have to make their purchases from alternative websites and hence increases competitiveness; consequently firms must take into account user satisfaction and face the challenge to enhance it frequently (Huanga and Fu, 2009:1) This study will investigate the effect of the customer self service technology on user satisfaction of e-commerce websites and how does it affect the commitment and the behavior of the customer. This study consists of five main sections.
The first section clarifies the factor that affects user satisfaction on e-commerce websites. The second section focuses on the customer self-service phenomena and its characteristics. The third section is basically the most important section of this study as it focuses on the effect of customer self service on User satisfaction of e-commerce websites. In the fourth and fifth section, the research design and the conclusion will be described. 2. Literature Review 2. 1 User satisfaction of e-commerce website. In this section factors that affect consumer’s satisfaction will be explained.
Cost saving, time saving, user interface design and e-commerce trust are factors that lead to satisfaction. Moreover Understanding the consumer decision making process will be discussed and how to assist the consumer on making his purchase decision and how will this affect the users satisfaction. 2. 1. 1Understanding the consumer decision making process. E-commerce can provide better support for the decision making process than others so it’s significant for businesses to understand the decision making steps for the consumer and to determine how will it affect their overall satisfaction.
By understanding the consumer decision making process it would be easy to develop and deploy systems that will meet the needs of the consumer. Businesses should provide sufficient information to help the consumer choose among alternative products online and to reach a successful decision that will encourage the consumer to continue purchasing from the online retailer (Kohli et al. 2004: 4). it was found that consumers can increase their productivity because they can make better purchasing decision in shorter time (Kim et al. 003:9).
Purchasing products or services on the internet is much easier because there’s sufficient information to gather about the product, past consumers, reviewers and manufacturer and competing products. The ability to get such information enhance the decision making process and increases the consumer willingness to purchase because he can determine whether the product meets his need and if it is better than the competitive product or not (Kim et al. 2003:10).
Previous researchers categorized the decision making process consists of three categories pre-purchase interaction (searching for products and discussing terms), purchase consummation (purchase order, payment and receiving receipts), and post-purchase interaction (customer service and support) (Devaraj et al 2002:3) Furthermore, the decision making process consists of three phases intelligence, design, and choice. In the intelligence phase the decision maker identifies the problem and collects information about it.
In the design phase the decision maker develop criteria, structure the problem and identify possible solutions to solve the problem. In the choice phase the decision maker chooses one solution that will meet his needs and reach the final decision. ((Kohli et al. 2004:6) Researchers found that by supporting the consumer to collect sufficient information about the product it would facilitate his evaluation of decision alternative. It was also found that time and cost can be saved by supporting the consumer during the choice phase because they can easily access the prices of competitive online etailers or by paying for the features they need only which is significantly related to consumer satisfaction.
The measure of transactions cost is considered as time efficiency. it is suggested that the consumer is not only concerned about income saving but also time saving to be satisfied, by reducing deficits such as missing delivery dates, online customers find online shopping more convenient and less time consuming (Devaraj et al. 2002:3;5). 2. 1. 2. 3User interface design. The user purchases, analyzes information posted on the website, searches for products and communicates with the website through interfaces so it’s important to improve it.
Incompetent interface may prevent the user to gather information needed and it may frustrate the user and lead him to cease the process of purchasing. However, competent interface which is user friendly and provides well presented information that increases user satisfaction. Designers should know that the user not necessarily goal-driven with complete knowledge, so designers should simplify the web design because too much complication will lead to consumer to confusion (Huanga and Fu, 2009:1).
Web interface design is often assessed with web usability. In other words web usability includes that a website design can satisfactorily meet user needs and effectively assists users to quickly obtain their goals. Web usability should integrate navigation, response time, credibility and content to meet the consumer needs. Navigation is the most important one as it pertains to the level and structure of the website and enables users to find information they need with spending the least effort. (Yang et al. 2010:3).
It was also found that “hygiene factors include those related to security and stability, as well as ease of use and ease of learning, and the motivation factors are those related to pleasure, such as the appearance of the web site and the user’s sense of achievement” (Huanga and Fu, 2009:2). It was found that users are likely to visit and use websites only if hygiene factors are satisfactory. Motivation factors have to be perceived as satisfactory in order to increase time spent on the website. Motivation factors play a centric role in affecting the satisfaction of the user and it increase the website potential to retain customers.
Moreover, it encourages web designers to increase the website performance through it as it attracts online users. Hygiene factors also affect the satisfaction of the online user but it will not result in higher usage, customer will terminate using the website if the hygiene factors did not meet their minimum expectations (Huanga and Fu, 2009:7-8). 2. 1. 2. 4E-commerce Trust E-commerce Trust is a crucial attribute of e-commerce system adoption which is essential for electronic customer relationship management (Hwang and Kim, 2006:2).
Trust is even more crucial for e-commerce because the online consumers are purchasing products based on their confidence in processes that are not quit obvious online and transactions over large geographical distance. Consumers may be concerned that businesses follow transactions obligations , but brick-and mortar business purchases is based on face to face interaction which is more likely to be trusted. Trust affects the user’s intention to purchase from the e-commerce website (Kim et al. 2003:2;7). Perceived risk is the uncertainty about the value of online transactions.
The consumer which has high level of trust will have relatively low perceived risk while the consumer which has low level of trust will have relatively high perceived risk (Kim et al. 2003:8). E-commerce is engaged with some risks because consumers have to give personal information like names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails and they may wait for days to receive the product they purchased and with the increase of this perceived risk the customer may be discouraged to purchase online (Kim et al. 2003:9).
Consequently Businesses have to design a website that provides trust for online purchasers (Hwang and Kim, 2006:2). By using risk reduction strategies, for example, insuring that losses will not occur and guarantees that if it does happen there will be compensation for it which will increase the trust of the consumer when he is making his purchasing decision and hence increases consumer’s satisfaction (Kovacs et al. 2011:5 ; 15). Moreover if consumer feel that the website is convenient and secured, he will increase their intention to purchase online.
Customer self service In this section self service phenomena will be explained, its effect on customers, its key challenges for organizations applying this service and it examines the effect of consumer’s voice behavior on customer and its effect on human’s interaction while performing the service. 2. 2. 1Self service phenomena. Although self service format was invented in 1916 but it took the researchers 50 years to acknowledge and address self service phenomena (Salomann et al. 2006:4). Self service technology is when the customer serves himself independent from the firm’s employee.
