Fall 2009 » Research Briefs » Guaging Web Customer Satisfaction

Guaging Web Customer Satisfaction

March, 2009

The U.S. economic downturn has produced a strange paradox: online retailers and dotcom companies are failing in record numbers, but online purchasing increased 24 percent in the past year. University of Arkansas researcher Vicki McKinney has developed a tool to help online retailers stay on the profitable side of this puzzle.

"In a turbulent e-commerce environment, Internet companies need to understand how to satisfy customers to sustain their growth and market share" explained McKinney, assistant professor of information systems.

McKinney, along with Kanghyn Yoon and Fatemeh Zahedi of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, published their findings in the journal Information Systems Research.

To measure customer satisfaction e-commerce retailers must first know what counts toward online customer satisfaction. McKinney has identified two primary components: information quality (IQ) and system quality (SQ). Although distinguishing between information and system quality is not common in IS research, McKinney found that the distinction between IQ and SQ as it relates to customer satisfaction had practical implications for the Web-design process.

"For example, customers dissatisfied with site retrieval and delivery mechanisms are likely to leave the site even if the information available on the Web site is of high quality," she explained. "Conversely, if a Web site lacks the information that customers need, its entertaining design or ease of search will not keep customers from leaving the site."

The researchers looked at issues related to IQ satisfaction, including relevance, timeliness, reliability and usefulness. SQ factors included access, usability, navigation and interactivity. They designed experiments to assess the importance of these qualities. They also measured customer expectations and how the Web site failed or succeeded in meeting those expectations.

"These elements bring the marketing aspect of Web sites into focus for retailers," said McKinney. "This is crucial to the effective design of Web sites for online business."