SERVICE QUALITY: A DETERMINANT OF CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN E-COMMERCE (WITH REFERENCE TO M. P.)

Abstract

Customer loyalty is an essential asset for many online retailers for the high cost of attracting new customers on the Internet and the relative difficulty in retaining them. Customer loyalty is primarily the product of superior service quality and the trust that such service entails in the non-Internet marketplace. This study examines whether the same applies with online retailers even though their service is provided by a website interface notably lacking a human service provider. As hypothesized, customer loyalty to a specific online retailer increased with perceived better service quality both directly and through increased trust. However, the study found that the five dimensions of service quality in SERVQUAL collapse to three with online service quality: (1) tangibles, (2) a combined dimension of responsiveness, reliability, and assurance, and (3) empathy have a positive association with customer loyalty for e-commerce. For this study total 200 customers were selected who have the preferences for e-commerce. The statistical tool correlation and regression were applied.