Personalization as a Strategy to Build Customer Relationship: The Role of Intimacy

Personalization that uses information technology to tailor content and products/services to the preferences and tastes of individual customers has become a useful function for online marketing. Many techniques have been developed, and research on personalized services has increased substantially in recent years. The objective of the thesis research is to investigate the relationship building perspective in investigating the effectiveness of personalization, which treats intimate experience resulting from personalized response as an important factor to affect the outcomes of relationship marketing, including the willingness to self-disclosure, customer loyalty, and customer’s attitude towards the personalized recommendations. This study will conduct controlled laboratory experiments on personalization Website in which the personalization agent will appear socialness, use personalized interface to interact with users, and provide personalized recommendation to users. The results and findings will provide valuable information to practitioners and researchers

PERSONALIZED SERVICES AS EMPATHIC RESPONSES: THE ROLE OF INTIMACY

Personalization that uses information technology to tailor content and products/services to the preferences and tastes of individual customers has become a useful function for online marketing. Many techniques have been developed, and research on personalized services has increased substantially in recent years. Several theories have been proposed to explain the effect of positive consumer attitude toward personalized services such as reducing information overload and the Elaboration Likelihood Model. These theories are grounded on a rational perspective. As personalization can be treated as an empathic response to the service receivers, we cannot ignore the role of emotion in a relationship building process. In this paper, we propose the relationship building (or Guanxi in Chinese) perspective in investigating the effectiveness of personalization, which treats intimate experience resulting from personalized response as an important factor to affect the receivers’ attitude towards the personalized recommendation. We conducted a controlled laboratory experiment on personalized recommendation to examine the role of intimacy in affecting consumer attitudes. Our findings indicated that intimate experience does mediate the effect of personalized response on consumer attitudes toward the recommendation. The results and findings provide valuable information to practitioners and researchers

Personalization: Is It Effective on New and Repeat Users?

This work studies personalization from the perspective of human computer interaction. The objectives are to examine the effects of various personalization strategies on users’ information processing and decision-making. We commence by reviewing the literature on personalization in the five research domains defined by Banker and Kauffman (2004), and then highlight the debates regarding the effectiveness of personalization in influencing users’ decision-making. To bridge the gap between the proliferation of personalization technologies and the uncertainty of their effectiveness, this work addresses the following research question: What are the effects of different personalization strategies on users’ information processing? We examine two common personalization strategies: preference matching and set size of personalized content. We explore how these strategies affect users’ decision-making. An information processing model rooted in the Heuristic-Systematic Model is developed. We formulate 10 hypotheses on the relationship between personalization strategies and users’ information processing. Data collected from two online field studies are used to assess the validity of the proposed hypotheses. The results of the studies indicate that personalization can capture users’ attention, and, personalization is also associated with an increase in users’ exploration of other content. This effect becomes less salient when the amount of non-personalized content increases

A Two-Process View of Trust and Distrust Building in Recommendation Agents: A Process-Tracing Study

Prior literature focuses on trust, while largely ignoring distrust, partly because of the assumption that an Information Technology (IT) design that builds trust in the IT will also prevent distrust-building. However, this assumption may not be true if trust-building processes and distrust-building processes in the context of IT usage are different. This paper proposes a two-process view of trust and distrust building, i.e., that trust-building and distrust-building processes are distinct and separate. In the context of recommendation agent (RA) usage in electronic commerce, a trust (distrust) process is defined as a customer’s favorable (unfavorable) interpretation of his or her interactions with an RA, resulting in a positive (negative) expectation that the RA can be relied upon for his or her shopping decisions. This study empirically tests a process theory rather than a variance theory. Variance theory research relies on logical arguments to explain and test the causality relationships among variables. Process theory research complements variance theory research by revealing and testing the mechanisms that constitute the processes by which certain variables influence others. In this process-tracing study, we collected and analyzed the concurrent verbal protocols from 49 participants using two RAs. The results of our protocol analysis support the proposed two-process view. The pattern of trust-building processes in RA usage is systematically different from that of distrust-building processes, which may suggest that some RA features should be designed to increase trust, and others to decrease distrust. The findings also suggest that distrust deserves research attention on its own merit. In a complex relationship involving both trust building and distrust building, understanding both trust and distrust processes, rather than focusing on trust alone, can lead to a more accurate representation and improved management of that complex relationship

Análisis y modelización de la adoptación de los sistemas de recomendación en el comercio electrónico

404 páginasTesis doctoral (Lectura 07/02/2013). Director: Francisco José Martínez López (Universidad de Granada). Tribunal: Martínez López, Francisco José, Univ. de Huelva, presidente; Padilla Meléndez, Antonio (secretario); Ortigueira Sánchez, Manuel (vocal); Luna Huertas, Paula (vocal); García Ordaz, María Mercedes (vocal). Se puede afirmar que la historia de las relaciones entre los individuos y las organizaciones se divide en dos, antes y después de la aparición de Internet, la penetración de los PC y de la banda ancha. En el campo organizacional, las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (TIC), se refieren al amplio espectro de tecnologías de base de los Sistemas de Información, y que se constituye en un importante recurso, que facilita la continua adaptación del Sistema de Información a los cambios internos y del entorno. La aplicación de los sistemas de información a las actividades organizacionales, caso concreto que nos interesa, el marketing, se constituye en una herramienta para que la empresa se mantenga competitiva en el mercado. Las relaciones de intercambio desarrolladas en los mercados electrónicos posibilitan la comunicación bidireccional entre las partes y entre cada una de ellas y el propio medio, exigiendo a las organizaciones implementar un marketing interactivo en términos de producto, precio, distribución y comunicación, en el que consumidor dirija el proceso de intercambio. El desarrollo del comercio en los mercados electrónicos y las aplicaciones de los sistemas de información al marketing, han tomado características del comercio tradicional y han sido adaptadas al electrónico, caso específico la adaptación que han realizado una gran cantidad de empresas comerciales en la Web a las recomendaciones a sus usuarios a través de los sistemas de recomendación (RS), entendidos como sistemas que realizan recomendaciones de productos que están buscando, o basadas en sus gustos o preferencias. Este es tema central de este trabajo, pero no enfocado a su parte técnica, sino a la comprensión de los factores que explican el comportamiento online de los consumidores frente a los RS de determinada website (WS), por lo que se propone un modelo teórico, sustentado por once hipótesis principales y otras subordinadas, la cuales son el resultado de la integración reflexiva de la Teoría de la Acción Razonada, de la adaptación Trust-TAM y de la Teoría del Comportamiento Planeado. Del análisis y corroboración del modelo, se puede concluir que el proceso de adopción del sistema de recomendación de cierto website se conforma sobre la base que a) el usuario percibe la opinión de otros con respecto al uso de los sistemas de recomendación en general y del particular de un determinado website; b) el grado de confianza que le merece al consumidor la interacción e información proporcionada por el sistema de recomendación; c) la percepción de utilidad de uso del sistema de recomendación que tiene su usuario; y d)la actitud del individuo hacia el sistema de recomendación de un website particular