Investigating the Role of Service Encounter in Enhancing Customer Satisfaction

Recently, it is found that several pure e-tailers set up a customer service center where on-line shoppers can access a real person over the phone to answer their questions. However, there has been little systematic research examining how service encounter help to enhance customer satisfaction when a pure e-retail company set up a call center to provide additional services. This study conducted a questionnaire survey and collected data from persons who shopped on-line and had experiences in requesting help from customer service centers. 116 responses were collected and the data were then analyzed to examine the four relationships posited in the research model. The proposed research model suggests that service encounter significantly influences service quality and information quality, which can jointly predict customer satisfaction. Findings of this study help to advance the understanding of the role that service encounters play in enhancing customer satisfaction. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1767-4.ch022