Customer Satisfaction in Online Retail Operations
The development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its wide application in marketing has led to the development of online retailing where customers now shop from the comfort of their home or office. This has allowed customers to redefine customer satisfaction as they can be online to read and learn about product reviews before shopping.
With the advent of social media, client engagement is widespread and can create value for the firm. Various models have been used to study customer satisfaction with online retail. These include disapproval model, perceived performance model, rational expectations model, expectations-artificial model, association model, cognitive dissonance model, comparison level model, contrast model and Kano model. This article contains information about customer satisfaction in online retail transactions.
Customer satisfaction is the customer satisfaction or frustration at consuming a product or service and comparing the perceived result with expectations. In cases where the experience falls short of expectations, the customer is not satisfied. If the consumption meets the expectations of the customer, the customer will be satisfied. If it exceeds expectations, the client is very satisfied or satisfied. Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of any business organization around the world. Indeed, this is the rationale behind the existence of any business in the first place. Considering productivity, profitability, sustainability and similar indicators in the business world, no organization dares to neglect the fact that customer satisfaction plays an important role in influencing these indicators. It is a futile exercise that goals such as efficiency, profitability and growth come to the forefront as the main occupations of an organization that places less emphasis on satisfying customers.
With the rise in technology as a transformative force and its impact on the ways people live, work and interact, ICT has affected the way people do business globally, and the situation in Niger is no different for emerging markets around the world. In addition, the increase in global retailing, both in terms of supply points and points of sale, has significantly increased the amount and application of ICT in the retail sector. Arguably, ICT plays an important role in managing complex retail operations. As the market continues to grow and become more sophisticated, adequate market knowledge, as well as absolute data control and knowledge, is crucial in the process of gaining competitive advantage in retail industries. ICT can be deployed to deal with any process that may be involved. Retailers began to appreciate the important role of ICT as a facilitator in the process of speeding up processes and saving costs to the business. This becomes the main rationale behind the rapid adoption of ICT in the traditional retail industry.
Strictly speaking, online retail has become an important part of the daily activities of business organizations. Access to various online retail platforms is seen as a necessity rather than a form of luxury, especially among city residents. One of the main determinants of the growth of online retailing and ICT is inseparable because online retailers strictly rely on ICT for their operations and concentration.
Also, online retailing focuses on the application of ICT to facilitate transaction and interaction between business and customers. All in all, ICT is a real tool for performing an effective and robust online retail operation; It is the live wire of any successful online retail operation. The application of ICT to retail further defines customer satisfaction, loyalty and loyalty, and the scope of the application is obviously unlimited. Accordingly, online retail transactions in this study refer to all activities of retail customers on the Internet and include purchasing from online stores, online payments and receipts such as automated teller machine (ATM) banking, mobile banking / money, web banking and point of sale (POS). operations. This chapter is divided into five sections.
Methodology
The methodology includes the review and analysis of published studies / research and reports, as well as the review and analysis of messages and posts sent by online vendors to customers. It also includes observations made and noted as customers purchase products ordered from online retailers. Analysis of secondary data aims to track patterns or trends in results, progress over time, and look for duplicates of specific outcomes to create a case. Many of the many different ways to analyze secondary data are no different from those used for primary data.
Customer Satisfaction Concepts
Customer satisfaction simply means giving the users or end consumers of companies’ products and services precisely what they need or want. It essentially involves meeting their demands and tastes, ie the input and the result must produce an output that meets the expectations of the customers. To be precise, customer satisfaction refers to meeting customers’ expectations and there must be a continuous and revised process for the firm’s acceptance and survival.
There are various stages with reliable research studies before the marketing concept stage where the needs and requests are taken into account before the actual production of goods and services. The rationale behind this exercise is to provide smooth marketing and avoid unnecessary marketing costs. One is the sales promotion activities of companies, advertisements, customer relations, etc. It influences the minds of customers to determine what the next products are, while it is easier and cheaper to go to research, in terms of time and money, while wondering why he is spending big money on it.
To put it remarkably, it is an aberration for any firm to assume that their customers will buy products that do not meet their tastes or that do not meet their needs or desires. In fact, there is a paradigm shift from old satisfactory products to a new more satisfying product. For example, a flat screen television was a satisfactory product ten years ago, but may not be right now. When it comes to products that emerge through research and take into account the image of the customers, there is not as much breaking power as breaking customer loyalty. It is a known fact that no commercial firm will want to produce products that do not satisfy their customers in the first place; however, the methods to follow are a major concern.
It should be noted that the persuasive point in order to satisfy a customer is that business organizations should maintain and maintain a personal and intimate relationship with customers. Soothing personal and hassle-free relationships allows them to not only protect and satisfy the organization’s products, but also serve as a free promotional tool resource for the organization. It is a well-known fact that word-of-mouth promotion is the most effective and efficient promotional tool because words from loved ones and person’s reference and peer groups are more reliable than any advertising or sales promotion. Therefore, it not only creates brand loyalty for the organization, but also enjoys “free” promotion from existing customers.
In addition, managers need to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the firm, areas for improvement, and ultimately, to monitor the satisfaction of their customers in order to maximize the potential of the business. This is to maintain, maintain or increase the likelihood of success in the market. It is essential for organizations to attract potential customers through recommendations and positive word of mouth from existing satisfied customers, as well as measuring customer satisfaction in their customer retention offer. A focus on customer satisfaction also enables managers to view a business firm’s development as an ongoing concern and serves as a benchmark for measuring the performance of the workforce.
Although most business owners strongly believe that customer satisfaction is essential, can they really support it for specific reasons? Some may give causal answers to the issue of customer satisfaction in the form of a service considered necessary for the success of the firm, but there is much evidence as to why a company must satisfy the customer. First of all, it should be noted that most businesses need a strong repeat business (buying) base to mitigate the impact of the arrivals and departures of new and short-term customers.
Second, a satisfied customer is a happy customer; happy is a good supporter. Customer satisfaction is important because it is a way for a happy customer to tell other people about their organization’s products. Happy customers buy more of the company’s products, and the firm can gain or lose potential customers based on another customer’s words.
Another compelling reason for customer satisfaction is that organizations must remain loyal and honest with their customers. Most businesses, especially small businesses, cheat their customers for a small amount of money, but in the long run, they lose their regular customers, which ultimately leads to goodwill, corporate image, and the ultimate downfall of the business. Goodwill is one of their promises to maintain prosperous goodwill. Being a good listener is an area where most companies fall short. Any organization that is a good listener needs to carry the slogan of customer satisfaction rather than focusing on revenue generation, being a good listener will help a firm follow current market trends by understanding customers’ demands.
Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty
Customer satisfaction is the positive, neutral, or negative feeling that a customer receives from an organization’s product in certain use cases. Also, customer satisfaction can be defined as a feeling of pleasure or disappointment that arises from a company’s product performance to expectations. If the customer’s perception of a particular product is better than expected, they are happy, satisfied as expected, and dissatisfied if less than expected.
Conversely, customer loyalty refers to what happens over time between a customer and an object in the market (a supplier, brand, store, etc.). It also reflects an emotional and commercial commitment to the service firm. Also, customer loyalty is a deep commitment to repurchase a product of choice in the future, despite marketing efforts that have the potential to cause situational effects and change behavior. Accordingly, the customer can be loyal to the brand, product or service, company and product environment.
Looking at the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty, it is not linear in most cases. Loyalty of satisfied customers is not always guaranteed. However, a higher satisfaction level can lead to more loyal customers, especially in the industrial market and service sectors. These mean that the relationship or link between satisfaction and loyalty is a function of product and market categorization. A study investigating the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty among bank customers revealed that there is a strong and positive relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. An empirical study was conducted on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty using data from the American customer satisfaction index and various customers, companies and industry indicators. In this study, it was determined that the relationship or the true nature of the relationship that exists between satisfaction and loyalty has a satisfaction effect on the differences in competition environment. This means that the business environment and the tone of competition that exists in it affects the link between satisfaction and loyalty.
In addition, a study on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty among service customers who use the emotional brand image as moderators reveals that customer satisfaction and emotional brand image have an important effect on customer loyalty. He further argues that the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the Indian commercial vehicle industry is positively strong, especially in the industry where prices are roughly the same among the major players. Similarly, in a study on the service quality dimensions of Nigerian Banks and customer satisfaction dimensions of online service, it has been determined that tangible assets, price, security and perceived risks are important predictors of online banking satisfaction. Initially, a reviewer in the previous version of the study raised the question of whether price is a quality of service variable, and the answer received is positive.
As a result, the relationships that exist between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty depend on the type of product classification, the absence or presence of the controlling factor (s), the circumstances, and the type of market.
