Title: Viability of electronic service offerings: user satisfaction in the business-to-employee market

Authors: Brian G. Mackie, Charles E. Downing

Addresses: Operations Management and Information Systems Department, College of Business, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. ' Operations Management and Information Systems Department, College of Business, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA

Abstract: User resistance, confusion, or numerous other user satisfaction issues can often limit participation in electronic service delivery systems. This project seeks to provide guidance to managers in the business-to-employee (B2E) segment, by empirically examining user reactions to both traditional, human-staffed service offerings and electronic, automated service offerings. Five components of user satisfaction which have been established in the literature were measured both before and after an automated electronic service was installed to replace a human-staffed customer service centre. The field site was a large national financial services company, and two sets of 500 surveys were mailed to users of the system. Results indicate that the longer the period of usage of a service prior to automation, the more satisfied the user is with the automation. However, both the age of the user, and the user|s previous experience with similar types of automation had no effect on satisfaction.

Keywords: electronic service offering; electronic service delivery; user satisfaction; measurement of user satisfaction; business-to-employee; survey; empirical study.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2004.004023

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2004 Vol.5 No.1, pp.14 - 24

Published online: 10 May 2004 *

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