Choice Drivers in E-Services: Insights from E-Financial Services Industry
42 Pages Posted: 26 Jun 2003
Abstract
Given the rapid increase of web-based sales despite the collapse of many dot-com firms, e-services (both online-only & hybrid "clicks & mortar" firms) are faced with a difficult challenge: what value-added features should they offer to effectively gain market share & profits while realistically considering operational and financial constraints? This paper explores the above questions by exploring similarities and differences in preferences between different customer segments for a widely used online service sector (e-financial services) in the United States. Through a national online discrete choice experiment of approx 1500 customers, we demonstrate that the utilities assigned by customers to various features of an online service (e.g. such as availability of traditional features, online features, price, access to brick-and-mortar backup, and access to the online service via the online medium) differ between different market segments. These results have both managerial & research implications for design and operations strategy formulation for e-services.
Keywords: Service Operations, Choice Modeling, Survey Research, e-Services
JEL Classification: C5, G2, L8, M1, N2
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