Influential Factors of E-Retail Service Quality Affecting E-Satisfaction

The expeditious development of technology and internet has diverted company direction to retain customer e-satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is becoming an area of great interest for companies and customer satisfaction has a direct impact on the profitability of a company. With regard to customer satisfaction’s importance, we investigate the impact of service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction .Thus, the sample of this survey consist of online buyers who have deal with e-retailer. A quantitative approach was employed using questionnaires; the sample consisted of 494 respondents. Factor analysis were used to access the dimensions affecting e-retail service quality and Regression technique were used to analyse the impact of service quality dimension on customer satisfaction. Results showed that the independent variable i.e. service quality dimensions i.e .responsiveness, functionality, security, ease of use, information, design, reliability and personalisation are found to have a significant and positive association with customer satisfaction. Introduction The online growth rate indicates that the online channel will play a keener role in consumers’ shopping activities. Inarguably, online channel present different experiences even when the same product are purchased from different e-retailer. In the last few years, a significant growth has been noticed in the internetbased service. Consumers have limited time and limitless choice. However, consumer can assess a virtually product in a single click. They would naturally connect to the internet merchant who meet their requirement and provide quality service. A number of researchers have made the point that the purpose of measuring service quality and gap is to prove information to upgrade customer loyalty. To deliver a better service quality, manager of the companies with web presence must first understand how the customer perceives and assess online customer service. With the speedy development of the Internet and Globalization of market, the retail sector has become an increasingly competitive and active business environment. Today’s product and services are quickly changing to digital form and presented through the Internet. In the competitive environment, it is important for the online retailer to take care of their customers better than competitor and provide better solution to their problems. Therefore, to achieve competitive advantage and differentiate strategies by offering superior service quality, it is necessary for online service providers to uncover what attributes customer utilize in their assessment of overall service quality and satisfaction and which attribute are important. E-satisfaction can be defined as the fulfillment of a consumer with respect to his or her prior purchasing experiences with a given retail-oriented website according to Anderson and Srinivasan’s (2003) definition. In the context of e-commerce, IS and marketing researchers have been interested in reexamining customer satisfaction. However, the essential importance of customer satisfaction and its consequent impacts appear to remain intact even in this environment (Evanschitzky, Iyer, Hesse and Ahlert, 2004). Satisfaction in online marketing is customer perception of their internet experience as compared to their experience with traditional offline service provider or retail stores. As customer satisfaction specify the degree of a customer’s positive feeling about a service provider, it is essential for service providers to understand customers’ perception of their services. Customer satisfaction is a key judgment predecessor for customer loyalty. This relationship would seem to be relevant to Internet e-commerce .Satisfied customers tend to have higher usage of services, and obtain stronger repurchase intention. Customers’ satisfactions with a certain e-service provider are expected to increase their willingness to make more online purchasing from that service provider. Rust and Zahorik stated that greater customer satisfaction leads to greater intent to repurchase. According to Anderson and Sullivian, a high level of customer satisfaction will decrease the perceived need to switch service provider, thereby rising customer repurchase and ultimately enhancing profitability of the organization. Henig and Klee further argued that satisfaction will positively influence commitment. A high level of satisfaction provides the customer with repeated positive reinforcement that will create commitment and loyalty. Literature Review Considering the competitive environment, there is a need for e-retailer to plan their strategies that will differentiate them from another. This can be achieved through the delivery of high service quality. The practice of exceptional service quality has been proven that customer satisfaction will significantly lead to customer loyalty (Caruana et al., 2000; Caruana, 2002). Service quality Parasuraman et al., (1985, 1988): Service quality is determined by the differences between customer’s expectations of the service provider’s performance and their evaluation of the services they received. Quality of service is very essential especially for the outgrowth and development of service sector business enterprises (Powell, 1995). It works as an antecedent of customer satisfaction (Ruyter and Bloemer 1995) Recently e-service has become popular in the world with the proliferation of the Internet, but the theory and practice of e-service is nevertheless in its infancy (Santos 2003), and in that respect is not an agreement along the definition of e-service.