How Does Anxiety Affect the Relationship between the Customer and the Omnichannel Systems?

Abstract

Omnichannel is not just a marketing, e-commerce, or customer support buzzword. This future customer engagement platform helps businesses communicate with customers through centralized channels on a smart interface. It is difficult to achieve customer loyalty when the risk in online transactions, which creates anxiety, exists in all transaction processes in an omnichannel system. Hence, the purpose of this research was to analyze the influence of anxiety on relationships when clients purchase from an omnichannel platform using the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) paradigm. To fulfill study aims, qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to acquire qualitative data, while survey responses from 485 participants were used to collect quantitative data. This study’s results revealed relationships between consumer psychology factors such as perceived mental benefits, hedonic value, and anxiety. Moreover, customer anxiety in omnichannel can be measured as a novel and exact concept in marketing science and have a moderating role in the effect of perceived mental benefits on electronic loyalty and perceived mental benefits on hedonic value in omnichannel systems. As a result, enterprises were also offered various managerial implications to develop their omnichannel system.