اهمیت نسبی ابعاد کیفیت خدمات در ورزیدگی تجارت الکترونیک The relative importance of service quality dimensions in E-commerce experiences

1. Introduction Since its commercialization in 1993, the Internet has dramatically changed people’s behavior and decision-making processes. The emergence of the smartphone ecosystem and widespread connectivity has also changed the manner in which we procure goods and services. Individuals’ decisions are heavily influenced by other users’ personal experiences recorded online in forums and online review websites. At the same time, the variety of products and services available to customers via the online channel continues to increase (Xu, Benbasat, & Cenfetelli, 2013). Brick and mortar organizations must move online to prevent a loss of market share. However, their lack of technical knowledge and experience with operating online, makes the transition problematic. Nevertheless, customer service remains a key determinant of ecommerce success (Delone & Mclean, 2004; Wang, 2008) and drives customer satisfaction in online transactions (Cenfetelli, Benbasat, & AlNatour, 2008; Xu et al., 2013). Information technology enabled customer services challenges traditional views of customers as simple services’ receivers, creating opportunities to push the frontier of customer service (Chesbrough & Spohrer, 2006) and to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Companies by harvesting technological innovations can provide high quality and personalized service at reasonable costs (Rust & Miu, 2006). Service quality measurement has always been critical for organizations, but it has been historically limited by difficulties in collecting customers’ opinions. However, with the rise of user generated content over the last decade, as well as the immediacy with which online customers can socialize their opinions on providers’ websites, online review platforms and social media enable new approaches to service quality measurement. Socialized data is data that individuals willingly and knowingly share via digital computer networks (Weigend, 2009). Online reviews are a common form of socialized data, representing spontaneously shared opinions by customers on review platforms (Mudambi & Schuff, 2010).