Website Quality and Offline Service Quality to Enhance Stickiness in China: The Moderating Effect of Job

Abstract

Several studies have examined how consumers form intentions to buy services online. However, few studies have investigated simultaneously the effect of website quality and offline service quality on customer satisfaction and behavioral intention. We performed a study to examine the impact that website quality and offline service quality have on customer satisfaction and stickiness of local life-service online group-buying in China, as well as to identify the moderating role of two groups (university students and office workers). A questionnaire survey was conducted on 417 Chines people who have experienced local life-service online group-buying. The results indicated that website quality can be conceptualized as a composite of four dimensions (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, safety, and quality) and offline service quality can be conceptualized as a composite of five dimensions (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy). Second, website quality and offline service quality positively affect customer satisfaction. Interestingly, offline service quality has more effect on customer satisfaction than website quality does. Third, customer satisfaction is strongly associated with stickiness. Fourth, the moderating effects of university students group and office workers group in the relationships between website quality, offline service quality and customer satisfaction are significant at the level of 0.05. While office workers put a premium on offline service quality in evaluating customer satisfaction, university students set a premium on website quality. Therefore, marketers need to appropriately utilize website quality and offline service quality to enhance stickiness of local life-service online group-buying in accordance with the groups.