Perceived creepiness in response to smart home assistants: A multi-method study

Smart home assistants (SHAs) have gained a foothold in many households. Although SHAs have many beneficial capabilities, they also have characteristics that are colloquially described as creepy – a fact that may deter potential users from adopting and utilizing them. Previous research has examined SHAs neither from the perspective of resistance nor the perspective of creepiness. The present research addresses this gap and adopts a multi-method research design with four sequential studies. Study 1 serves as a pre-study and provides initial exploratory insights into the concept of creepiness in the context of SHAs. Study 2 focuses on developing a measurement instrument to assess perceived creepiness. Study 3 uses an online experiment to test the nomological validity of the construct of creepiness in a larger conceptual model. Study 4 further elucidates the underlying behavioral dynamics using focus group analysis. The findings contribute to the literature on the dark side of smart technology by analyzing the triggers and mechanisms underlying perceived creepiness as a novel inhibitor to SHAs. In addition, this study provides actionable design recommendations that allow practitioners to mitigate end users’ potential perceptions of creepiness associated with SHAs and similar smart technologies

CONSUMERS’ WILLINGNESS TO BUY FOOD VIA THE INTERNET: A REVIEW OF THE LITTERATURE AND A MODEL FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

In the first part of the paper, existing studies on consumer propensity to buy via the Internet are reviewed in an attempt to shed light on factors explaining consumer willingness to buy food via the Internet. Following a model by Sindhav and Balazs (1999), determinants relating to medium, product, consumer, firm and environment are distinguished. In order to draw the various results together and provide a coherent framework for future research, we then propose a model which combines the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the lifestyle construct. The model can be used to analyse how beliefs affecting consumers intention to buy food via the Internet are formed and changed due to experience with such shoppingNo keywords;

Communicating value to enhance service visualization

Purpose – This study aims to examine the effects of enhanced visualization of intangible service value through integration of means-end perspectives on advertising effectiveness.Design/methodology/approach – Banking advertisements, incorporating message stimuli derived from salient values desired by the financial consumers and designed to assist message elaboration and stimulate personal relevance, were developed to examine the influence of cognitive connectivity on vividness of intangible service benefits and service advertising effectiveness. Findings – The findings demonstrate that greater cognitive connectivity positively affects perceived tangibility, attitude towards the advertisement, and attitude towards the brand. Additionally, the results indicated that perceived personal relevance has higher influence on envisioning service components, compared to one’s ability to connect visual cues to perceived benefits and to immediate end-goals. Research limitations – This study incorporated visual stimuli limited only to financial security and social recognition. Future research should aim to examine the effects of different type of values on consumers’ elaboration process and their ability to visualize financial services. Originality/value – This study extends knowledge of the means-end chain by proposing a means-end cognitive connectivity (MECC) construct which influences the degree that consumers are able to mentally picture intangible service attributes. This study also provides insight that different values have different degree of influence on one’s ability to visualize service

Measuring Customer Satisfaction through SERVQUAL Model: A Study on Beauty Parlors in Chittagong

Everyone wants to be beautiful. One’s beauty can be enriched with proper nourishment, treatment and care. For that reason beauty parlors have been established in cities and towns. It’s a flourishing business in service sector. This study attempts to measure customer satisfaction on parlors in Chittagong city. A structured questionnaire is developed on SERVQUAL model. The survey is conducted among 100 respondents in 5 most popular beauty parlors in Chittagong. The purpose of the study is to identify customer perception on tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy in beauty parlors in Chittagong and to evaluate the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction. The statistical tools SPSS is used to calculate the mean and linear regression analysis. The findings show that tangibility has the highest mean score among five factors. Moreover, tangibility factor has significant influence on customer satisfaction. Beauty parlors should consider these factors more to satisfy customer. Keywords: Customer Satisfaction, SERVQUAL Model, Beauty Parlor

Services advertising effectiveness: an investigation into means-end chain connectivity and consumer visualisation of services

The services advertising literature has called for additional studies of the type of tangible cues and advertising appeal that reduce the intangibility of services. This research proposes that the display of service attributes, as tangible cues, that consumers can easily link to personal values in services advertising messages may enable consumers to mentally visualise a service’s benefits, and thus facilitate the evaluation process. The study draws on principles of the means-end chain and Berry and Clark’s (1986) recommendations for tangibilising services during advertising. Together these perspectives lead to the proposition that advertising messages reflecting important personal values enhance perceptions of tangibility (visualisation strategy) and lead to more positive consumer attitudes. Financial services were chosen as the service category because they are characterised by a high degree of intangibility. In an experimental study involving fictitious bank ads resembling magazine advertisements, participants were allocated to one of eight treatment groups created by manipulating type of product, type of appeal and type of service provider. A total of 468 questionnaires were collected, and tests were carried out using multivariate analysis of covariance and structural equation modelling. Findings supported the proposed conceptualisation, indicating that when consumers are able to make means-end linkages between physical representations of tangible cues and personal values satisfied by the service, there is a positive impact on perceived tangibility, attitude towards the advertisement and attitude towards the brand. The main theoretical contribution of this research to the knowledge base is that the study demonstrated that perceived tangibility and advertising effectiveness were enhanced by activating personal values important to consumers, which facilitate consumers’ visualisation and evaluation of service-related benefits. Understanding how consumers mentally linked the different means-end elements stimulated from tangible cues in advertisements will help managers of service firms develop more effective advertising strategies to create the desired brand image

The Impact of Web Site Design on Consumer Loyalty in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Internet Commerce: A Rhetorical Approach

With an enormous multitude of potential consumers globally, the Internet offers an opportunity that merchants have never before seen. Corporate giants to small businesses considered investments of large amounts of time, money, resources, man-hours, and venture capital a wise decision when considering the potential return-on-investment (ROI) of the Internet boom of the early to mid 1990\u27s. However, electronic commerce has experienced the meteoric rise and subsequent crash of any behemoth entity cast aloft without moorings or foundation. When millions of dollars were lost, experts emerged &om the ashes and attempted to develop new paradigms designed to explain the failure, redirect the quickly amassed skills and resources previously applied, and stem the exit of great numbers of commercial entities from the Internet and a virtual economy . An important issue related to Internet commerce is what factors would facilitate customer loyalty to a Web site. An effective Web site design could be one of the ways to a company success. Using the previously unapplied concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos to electronic commerce as found in the research taxonomy of Winn and Beck\u27s studies (2002), this research composes a theoretical framework for further investigate the interaction between the customer and the Web site design in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Internet commerce. The research design employed a quantitative method approach using 36 closed-ended questions, plus one open-ended question on the survey instrument. A survey questionnaire with a closed-ended 1 to 9 Likert scale was used to ask respondents the extent to which they disagree or agree (1 = very strongly disagree, 5 = neither agree nor disagree, 9 = very strongly agree). Data was collected in a period of four months from September to December of 2003. A sample using a Web survey in U.S. was obtained with an N count of 307 (154 males and 153 females). Collected data were analyzed by SPSS Windows Version 11.0. A total of five different statistical analyses were employed in this study. They are descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, independent-samples t Test analysis, one-way ANOVA analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Rhetorical design is concerned with modification of the consumer\u27s attitude toward the site. The regression results support the inference of rhetorical elements (logos, pathos, and ethos) and consumer loyalty relationship. This research provides a crucial finding facilitate the development of Internet commerce in persuasive discourse. Results of this study indicated that the more rhetorical elements that online sellers can offer through the visual display of Web sites, the more interested the consumers will be to frequently visit, make repeated purchases or service, and do word-of-mouth referrals to the same Web site. The outcomes of the study will help marketers and Web designers to create the most persuasive site environment for online shoppers. Web sites that operate on the basis of rational, emotional, and credible ways will have best chances to win consumers\u27 hearts