Bringing the corner -store online: The challenges and promises of online customer service.

Information technology (IT) enables firms to harness the information-richness of the Internet in order to provide automated customer relationship management. As a result, online customer service is emerging as a promising IT-based alternative to traditional means of customer service, such as branding, telephone customer service, and price discounts. Consequently, the concept of customer acquisition and retention, which has traditionally fallen within the area of marketing, is entering the realm of information systems (IS) design. My dissertation addresses the possibilities and challenges brought about by IT-enabled online customer service mechanisms. This dissertation examines whether firms can use IT-based service mechanisms to differentiate themselves, and therefore charge higher prices. In addition, this dissertation examines how online customer service features affect customer browsing and buying behavior. After a brief introduction chapter, this dissertation addresses the promises and challenges of online customer service in four chapters, each of which covers an aspect of the online customer service experience. Each of the four parts provides academics and practitioners alike useful information towards better understanding the economic and design issues of the online customer service experience. The four aspects of the online customer service experience that this dissertation examines (by chapter) are: (1) The ideal relationship between personalization and price, examined through an analytical model (chapter II); (2) The actual relationship between personalization and price, examined through empirical field data (chapter III); (3) The effect of consumer search behavior and negative online service features on consumer browsing and buying behavior, examined through conversion rate rather than price (chapter IV); (4) The effect of online service features on consumer willingness to share information towards personalization, examined through survey data (chapter V). The effects of the online experience that are documented in this dissertation are truly unique, and are an emergent trend in electronic business frontiers. Through the use of online customer service mechanisms, firms are able to charge a systematic price premium for certain categories of homogenous goods. In addition, online customer service mechanisms have differing effects on consumer behavior when provided by market leaders versus followers. Lastly, firms can encourage consumers to share their information online through the use of information transparency features.Ph.D.Commerce-BusinessEconomic theoryMarketingSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124618/2/3150152.pd

The Personalization Privacy Paradox: An Empirical Evaluation of Information Transparency and the Willingeness to be Profiled Online for Personalization

Firms today use information about customers to improve service and design customized offerings. To do this successfully, however, firms must collect consumer information. This study enhances awareness about a central paradox for firms investing in personalization; namely, that consumers who value information transparency are also less likely to participate in personalization. We examine the relationship between information technology features, specifically information transparency features, and consumer willingness to share information for online personalization. Based on a survey of over 400 online consumers, we examine the question of whether customer perceived information transparency is associated with consumer willingness to be profiled online. Our results indicate that customers who desire greater information transparency are less willing to be profiled. This result poses a dilemma for firms, as the consumers that value information transparency features most are also the consumers who are less willing to be profiled online. In order to manage this dilemma, we suggest that firms adopt a strategy of providing features that address the needs of consumers who are more willing to partake in personalization, therefore accepting that the privacy sensitive minority of consumers are unwilling to participate in personalization, despite additional privacy features

Self-service on the Internet : an explanatory model

This paper describes research that identifies and classifies the dimensions of self-service activity enabled through the Internet. Self-service is effected by organizations providing ways and means whereby customers perform tasks related o the procurement of goods and services. We describe how an instrument used to measure Internet based self-service was developed, validated and applied. The results from the application of the instrument across a large number of websites covering a range of industries, countries and cultures are analysed and discussed. The study supports our initial model in which type of industry, level of technological development, and cultural factors are proposed as explanatoryvariables for web based self-service. We conclude with an assessment of this programme of research’s achievements so far

Are you being served? Exploring the role of customers as employees in the digital world

This paper describes research in progress to identify and classify the dimensions of self-service activity enabled through the Internet. It pursues the notion that this process involves turning customers into employees of the organizations from which the service is being obtained

Turning customers into employees research in progress

This conceptual paper discusses the emerging phenomenon of turning customers into partial employees of companies. In order to study this phenomenon, we intend to look at how companies’ websites are used as a means for transforming aspects of the service experience that used to be performed by employees into aspects that are now performed by customers through interaction with the company’s website. Following a review of the literature, we proceed to describe the development of an instrument that measures the process of Turning Customers Into Employees (TCIE) via content analysis of companies’ websites. We describe the methodology that we intend to use to develop the TCIE instrument in some detail. We conclude the paper by outlining directions for future research that emanate from this preliminary investigation