Comfort your online customer: quality, trust and loyalty on the internet

TLDR

In e‑commerce, loyal customers are highly valuable, and loyalty is largely driven by service‑quality satisfaction and trust, yet empirical evidence linking e‑trust to loyalty remains limited. The study empirically investigates the roles of service quality, satisfaction, and trust in an e‑commerce context. The authors examined these relationships through an empirical analysis of e‑commerce customers. Results show that e‑trust directly boosts loyalty, with the assurance dimension affecting loyalty through e‑trust and satisfaction, while other quality dimensions influence loyalty mainly indirectly via satisfaction.

Abstract

In e‐commerce, loyal customers are considered extremely valuable. Loyalty is generally attributed to satisfaction with the quality of service. Since online transactions involve many uncertainties for the customer, trust is a condition for exchange. Trust in the electronic medium – here called “e‐trust” – is believed to increase online customer loyalty, but empirical confirmations are scarce. The present study empirically investigates the roles of service quality, satisfaction and trust in an e‐commerce context. In the study, e‐trust is found to directly affect loyalty. The e‐service quality dimension of assurance, i.e. trusting the merchant, influences loyalty via e‐trust and e‐satisfaction. Other e‐quality dimensions, such as ease of use, e‐scape, responsiveness, and customization influence e‐loyalty mainly indirectly, via satisfaction. Managerial implications and suggestions for further research are provided.