Gerson Tontini
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Júlio Cesar da Silva
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Eliane Fátima Strapazzon Beduschi
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Elis Regina Mulinari Zanin
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Margarete de Fátima Marcon
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to consider the nonlinear impact of online retail stores’ quality dimensions on general customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
– Using a quantitative approach, 429 online users answered a closed questionnaire regarding their present satisfaction with 26 service attributes, their general satisfaction and loyalty. Using factorial analysis with Varimax rotation, five service-quality dimensions are studied: service accessibility/speed, fault recovery, buying reliability, service and site flexibility and site interaction/feedback. Penalty and reward contrast analysis identifies the Kano model classification of the service-quality dimensions, and the nonlinear impact of these dimensions, and customer satisfaction, on customer loyalty.
Findings
– The results show that there is a nonlinearity between quality dimensions, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The dimension “service accessibility/speed” has a one-dimensional impact on customer satisfaction, but with higher reward impact than penalty impact. “Fault recovery” is a “must-be”, “buying reliability” and “service flexibility” are “attractive” and “site interaction/feedback” is one-dimensional. Besides, the dimension “service accessibility/speed” has also a direct impact on loyalty if achieving above-average performance, thus reinforcing general customer satisfaction.
Originality/value
– Few previous papers explore this nonlinearity in online retail services. So, future studies should lead to a theoretical and practical understanding of managing these services. Understanding this nonlinearity may help companies to better identify what improve or offer to customers.
Evaluating the Impact of Fault Recovery on Superscalar Processor Performance
