Tufuga Media

This is an excerpt taken from a journal on web loyalty –  Otim and Grover. An empirical study on Web-based services and customer loyalty. European Journal of Information Systems (2006) vol. 15 (6) pp. 527.  The journal studied pre-purchase, purchase process, and post purchase factors which impacted customer loyalty.  In short, they found that pre-purchase factors, such has web design, had little impact on customer loyalty when compared to post purchase factors, such as delivery time.  Here are a few of their findings.

Lessons learnt

The empirical findings from this study offer some lessons learnt. In line with conventional thinking, we initially thought that Website design factors (e.g., overall look and feel of the site) might be the most important for online shoppers. However, the results were quite to the contrary as we offer the following lessons learnt:

• It is not about the bells and whistles of Website design: Quite often, companies are drawn into thinking that flashy Websites with lots of multimedia are necessary to attract customers and keep them coming back. How- ever, goal-oriented customers are more concerned about shopping efficiency and not shopping enjoyment.�
• Search mechanisms may be too much of a good thing: Companies often focus on search mechanism and recommender systems that help customers search and evaluate products, and furnish them with the neces- sary information to make a purchase. However, the results from this study imply that while these func- tionalities are somewhat important, focusing on them is not a strong strategy for customer retention and companies may be doing too much of a good thing.�
• Customers value transparency: Using tactics to try to generate a sale is not a winning strategy. Firms that engage in information hiding and presentation tricks (like not showing hidden costs until it is too late) are following a short-term mind set that will be detri- mental to their long-term viability.�
• Timely delivery is more important than delivery options. It is easy for any company to provide several delivery options for products purchased online. However, the real service differentiator from the customer’s perspec- tive is timely delivery.�
• If you build it they will come – or will they? Companies that are focused on just mere Web presence as a point- of-sale are short sighted. In the competitive world of e-commerce, establishing relationships with customers is more important than trying to make a one-time sale. Post-purchase services are particularly important in fostering customer relationships since they are tied to product ownership. Results from this study imply that satisfaction with product ownership experience is instrumental in generating repeat purchases.