Effect of Web Design Characteristics on Customer Loyalty: A Multilevel Analysis

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

Web sites are important components of Internet strategy for organizations. This paper develops a theoretical model for understanding the effect of Web site design elements on customer loyalty to a Web site. We show the relevance of the business domain of a Web site to gain a contextual understanding of relative importance of Web site design elements. We use a hierarchical linear modeling approach to model multilevel and cross-level interactions that have not been explicitly considered in previous research. By analyzing data on more than 12,000 online customer surveys for 43 Web sites in several business domains, we find that the relative importance of different Web site features (e.g., content, functionality) in affecting customer loyalty to a Web site varies depending on the Web site's domain. For example, we find that the relationship between Web site content and customer loyalty is stronger for information-oriented Web sites than for transaction-oriented Web sites. However, the relationship between functionality and customer loyalty is stronger for transaction-oriented Web sites than for information-oriented Web sites. We also find that government Web sites enjoy greater word-of-mouth effect than commercial Web sites. Finally, transaction-oriented Web sites tend to score higher on mean customer loyalty than do information-oriented Web sites.

Discipline

Computer Sciences | E-Commerce

Publication

Journal of Management Information Systems

Volume

23

Issue

3

First Page

97

Last Page

127

ISSN

0742-1222

Identifier

10.2753/MIS0742-1222230305

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Additional URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/MIS0742-1222230305

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