E-LOYALTY AND ITS ANTECEDENTS

Transcription

1 International Journal of Business Management & Research (IJBMR) ISSN Vol. 3, Issue 2, Jun 2013, TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. E-LOYALTY AND ITS ANTECEDENTS SANDEEP ARYA & SANDEEP SRIVASTAVA Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Guna, Madhya Pradesh, India ABSTRACT Building and maintaining e-loyalty has become one of the critical aspects as the competition is one click away on the World Wide Web. Several studies demonstrate the antecedents to win more and more online users and efforts have been made to keep them loyal to the websites. Still the extant literature is not able to draw consensus about the determinants of e-loyalty. This paper states the constructs of e-loyalty and also discusses the determinants which are not able to draw majority in their favor. This study reveals that commonly acknowledged determinants to build e-loyalty are e-service quality, e-trust, perceived value and e-satisfaction and sheds some light on the reasons of differences in outcomes among the studies. KEYWORDS: Building and Maintaining E-Loyalty, Antecedents,Contact interactivity INTRODUCTION Big online companies to smaller ones care deeply, how to attract and win online users which in turn eventually led to increase in their bottom line of the financial statements. Several researches demonstrate a wide variety of antecedents responsible to build and maintain e-loyalty, however still the researchers are not able draw to a point of consensus among themselves. Inconsistencies exist in literature regarding the antecedents of e-loyalty as some have considered the certain attribute responsible to build e-loyalty while others ignore the very same attribute. This study focuses the findings of the previous research in a comparative way and also shed some lights on the inconsistencies which lie among studies. Section 2 describes the commonly acknowledged success factors, section 3 discuss the antecedents not widely acknowledged, section 4 presents the comparative analysis of the various research and last section describes the implications and direction for future research. COMMONLY ACKNOWLEDGED SUCCESS FACTORS Figure 1 exhibit the factor of consensus

2 72 Sandeep Arya & Sandeep Srivastava Results of many researches narrowed the list of e-loyalty antecedents to e-service quality, perceived value, trust and e-satisfaction. Contact interactivity, convenience, customization and responsiveness are considered to be the major constituents of e-loyalty. We discuss below the dominants determinants for building e-loyalty. E-Service Quality E-service quality is the ability of an online service provider to fulfill the needs of online consumer. E-service quality is the ability of an e-commerce service providers to which it handles manage customer interactions with efficiency and effectiveness (Santos 2003). Hence a website need to be service oriented if it has to win the online customers. Contact Interactivity Contact interactivity plays an important part in effective communication between the two parties and especially if there is a communication between a machine and a human. Most of the time online users interact with machines while surfing. Contact interactivity is defined as the availability and effectiveness of customer support tools on a website and the degree to which the website facilitates two-way communication with customers (Srinivasan et al., 2002). Contact interactivity is a major antecedent of e-service quality (Chang et al., 2008; Cyr et al., 2009; Anderson et al., 2011) Convenience Convenience of a website is its quality to being suitable to online users during their visit or purchasing a product on the website. Convenience is the ability of a website to the extent it helps users and makes navigation easy (Srinivasan et al. 2002). Convenience helps in constructing e service quality(cyr et al., 2007; Anderson et al., 2011) and is decisive for e- loyalty (Semeijn et al. 2005; Rodger et al., 2005; Chang et al., 2008; Cyr et al., 2009; Anderson et al., 2011). Responsiveness How quickly a website answers to user query is called responsiveness (Cyr et al., 2009). The soon the site give responses to user queries the more responsiveness it is. Responsiveness is an antecedent of e-service quality (Semeijn et al., 2005) and assist in building e-loyalty (Semeijn et al., 2005; Rodger et al., 2005; Blasco et al., 2010). Customization Customization is the ability of a website to alter the products and services according to the user specification (Srinivasan et al., 2002). E-Satisfaction E-satisfaction is a measure of how the offerings i.e. products and services of an e-retailer surpasses the expectation of online user a (Oliver 1999). If a customer is satisfied then only he will remain loyal to website. Thus e- satisfaction is important to create e-loyalty (Rodger et al. 2005; Sheng et al. 2010; Sadeh et al. 2009; Anderson et al. 2011). E-Trust Trust is the degree of reliability which a online user have on its service provider i.e. websites (Morgan & Hunt. 1994). Trust plays vital part in creating e-loyalty (Chao et al. 2009; Cyr et al. 2009; Anderson et al. 2011). Perceived Value Perceived value is the difference between of what is being received in comparison to what is being given in terms of psychological and economic value (Zeithaml 1998). Without any doubt, perceived value contributes in acquiring e- loyalty (Cyr et al. 2009; Sadeh et al. 2011).

3 E-Loyalty and its Antecedents 73 DETERMINANTS NOT ABLE TO DRAW MAJORITY IN THEIR FAVOR Following antecedents are being given a little importance in the extant literature as there are cited by some as important determinants of e-loyalty but not widely recognized. Accuracy Accuracy is how precisely, correctly and up to date information is being provided to you by the website (Semeijn et al., 2005). Assurance Assurance is the coolness or buoyancy that website is able to poise in the online user (Ribbink et al., 2004) Brand Loyalty Brand loyalty is the affection developed towards a particular brand over a time period (Supphellen and Nysveen, 2001). Thus the degree of this affection is important in determining e-loyalty. If the loyalty is more towards a particular website, the user will visit it often. Care Care is the observant behavior of an e-retailer about their online users and keeping in mind their pre- and post purchase, makes surfing environment and visit time conducive to the user, which in turn helps in building and maintaining short term relationship and later on convert it into a long term (Srinivasan et al., 2002). Character Character is the use of various design features such as images, fonts, texture, graphics to depict the overall image or personality to consumers (Srinivasan et al., 2002) Choice Choice is the skill of a website to present a large variety of product and services to a online user (Srinivasan et al., 2002). As the users have more choices he is intended to visit the website again and again. Hence choice is considered as an important attribute while considering the e-loyalty of a website. Cultivation/ Nurturing Cultivation is the degree to which an e-retailer affords information and inducement to its customers in order to expand the width and deepness of their acquisition over time (Srinivasan et al., 2002). Commitment 2011) Commitment is the potency of association between a website user and the website (Anderson and Swaminathan, Efficiency Efficiency is the ability how easily a user can access the information and locate the product and services (Cyr et al., 2009). Enjoyment Enjoyment is the pleasure felt when a user experience a good time during his visit (Cyr et al., 2007).

4 74 Sandeep Arya & Sandeep Srivastava E-Scape E-scape is the ability of an e-retailer, how pleasingly information is exhibited on the website and it appeals to online users (Semeijn et al., 2005). Fulfillment Fulfillment is the contentment a site is being able to provide to online user through the delivery of product or service (Sheng and Liu 2010). Privacy Privacy is maintaining the data and user information unobserved to the unwanted peoples and free from disturbances (Sheng et al., 2010). All users expect that their information not be shared with anyone without their prior approval and knowledge, this is important especially in case of financial transactions. System Availability 2010). The element system availability wraps matter which refers to the proper performance of the website (Blasco et al., Virtual Communities Virtual communities are the individuals or groups who share their ideas, experiences and thoughts through the user of online portals or websites (Anderson et al. 2011, Cyr et al. 2007). MAJOR OUTCOMES OF E-LOYALTY RESEARCHES IN EXTANT ITERATURE Various researches with their major outcomes are depicted in Table 1.

5 E-Loyalty and its Antecedents 75 Table 3 describes the quantitative assessment of antecedents of e-loyalty. A 1 is given if the concerned study considers the respective antecedent important for building and maintaining e-loyalty. By Quantitative analysis we observe the fact that e-service quality, perceived value, trust and e-satisfaction are the dominating determinants over other in acquiring e-loyalty. Further, there are some determinants like efficiency, assortment, privacy, virtual community which have come up to certain extent but not able to draw majority.

6 76 Sandeep Arya & Sandeep Srivastava CONCLUSIONS To disembark at the end we pretense two question How do we define the determinants responsible for acquiring and maintaining e-loyalty and that will be acknowledged by majority? Why there is a disparity lies among various studies? Concurrence lies for some of the attributes but on the other hand some studies have not considered the determinants at all which others have considered of grave importance. In the end we remain with a large basket of antecedent in which some are widely recognized while others are not. Trust, perceived value, satisfaction and e-service quality are considered to be important by the majority while there are others attributes like enjoyment, efficiency, system availability, virtual community etc are also included as a determining factors of e-loyalty. Next question we have to confront is why there is a disagreement among several studies regarding many of the attributes. The probable answer to the question follows

7 E-Loyalty and its Antecedents 77 Diversity: Diversity exists in different researches. The studies have been carried out in so many different cultures, communities and industries. Some have done their empirical research in online health industry, some in e-banking and online travel agencies. Priority of User: When a user log on to a website he is having some sort of need to be fulfilled, for example one may log to check s while other may log to purchase a mobile or to book a ticket. Hence, priority of user is different at different point of time and so the expectations from website. So there is a need to separate or add the features in websites according to their expectation. For instance, a user who wants to do financial transaction want privacy and security factors ahead compared to others, and a user want to purchase a trouser may give priority to product quality rather than efficiency and effectiveness. We conclude with the remarks that for building and maintain e-loyalty and before developing the conceptual model of e-loyalty two points must be considered one is to consider the industry or context and second is the primary need of user. We do believe that if e-loyalty models be developed on separately for separate industries and needs of users it could give better results. REFERENCES 1. Anderson, R.E., & Srinivasan, S.S. (2003). E-satisfaction and e-loyalty: a contingency framework. Psychology & Marketing, 20 (2), Anderson, R.E., & Swaminathan, S. (2011). Customer satisfaction and loyalty in e-markets: A PLS path modeling approach. Journal of marketing theory and practice, 19 (2), Arya, Sandeep., & Srivastava, Sandeep. (2012). Acquiring e-loyalty: Competition is just one click away A literature review. International Journal of Research in Management, Economics and Commerce, 2 (11), Blasco, M. F., Saura, I.G., Contri, G. B., & Velazquez, B. M. (2010). Measuring the antecedents of e-loyalty and the effect of switching costs of the website. The service industry journal, 30 (11), Chang, H. H., & Chen, S. W. (2008). The impact of customer interface quality, satisfaction and switching costs of e-loyalty: Internet experience as moderator. Computers in Human Behavior, 24 (6), Cyr, D., Hassanein, K., Head, M., & Ivanov, A. (2007). The role of social presence in establishing loyalty in e- service environments. Interacting With Computers, 19 (1), Cyr, D., Head, M., & Ivanov, A. (2007)). Perceived interactivity leading to e-loyalty: Gommans, M., Krishnan, K.S., & Scheffold, K.B. (2001). From brand loyalty to e-loyalty: a conceptual framework. Journal of Economic and Social Research,, 3 (1), Gummerus, J., Liljander, V., Pura, M. & Van Reil, A. (2004). Customer loyalty to content based websites: the case of an online health care service. Journal of Services Marketing, 18 (3), Hong, W., Thong, L., & James, Y. (2013). Internet privacy concerns: An integrated conceptualization and four empirical studies. MIS Quarterly, 37 (1), Ribbink,D., Van Reil, C.R., Liljander, V., & Streukens, S. (2004). Comfort your online customer: Quality, trust and loyalty on the internet. Managing service quality. 14(6),

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