Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

10-2017

Abstract

Purpose: Demand for service convenience, defined as a consumer's perception of minimized time and effort spent to obtain a service, has increased in conjunction with certain sociocultural and demographic changes. Previous research notes the significance of service convenience, but the importance of different dimensions of service convenience and the role of key moderators affecting the link between convenience and satisfaction (like customer psychographic and sociodemographic characteristics) remain unaddressed. Thus, the purpose of this research is to identify those customer groups for which offering convenience will have the highest leverage to increase satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: Two models are developed and tested: a multidimensional model of service convenience with a formative measure of five service convenience dimensions, namely, decision, access, search, transaction and after-sales convenience, and a moderator model hypothesizing different customer psychographic and sociodemographic characteristics (time pressure, shopping enjoyment, age, household size and income) that affect the link between service convenience and satisfaction. Findings: This study reveals that search convenience, followed by transaction and decision convenience, exerts the greatest influence on the perception of overall service convenience. In addition, those who value service convenience most are high-income, time-pressed consumers in smaller households who experience low shopping enjoyment. Originality/value: Providers have limited budgets for enhancing their services. Thus, it is important to identify which dimension has the greatest influence on the perception of service convenience and the customer segments for which service convenience is most critical.

Keywords

Retailing, Shopping, Partial least squares, Customer characteristics, Service convenience, Formative measurement models

Discipline

Marketing | Sales and Merchandising

Research Areas

Marketing

Publication

Journal of Services Marketing

Volume

31

Issue

6

First Page

527

Last Page

538

ISSN

0887-6045

Identifier

10.1108/JSM-10-2016-0353

Publisher

Emerald

Copyright Owner and License

Authors-CC-BY-NC

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-10-2016-0353

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