Shopping for better service

Fort Worth, TX

12/1/2008

by Shannon Rossman Allen,
courtesey of Endeavors and the TCU Magazine

Hate standing in line? So does Julie Baker, whose research about waiting times and online avatars ought to be required reading by retailers.

Julie Baker is not a shopaholic, but you might think she is based on her research specialty. The marketing associate professor in the Neeley School of Business studies the relationship between perceived wait time, dissatisfaction and regret in retail customers, as well as the use of an avatar, a graphical image that serves as a virtual salesperson for online shoppers.

Though several research studies look at customer wait times, Baker’s study shifts the spotlight from the positive to the negative.

“Instead of focusing on what a retailer is doing right in terms of customer service and wait time, our study probes customer dissatisfaction and provides some answers on how managers might minimize negative evaluations of the wait experience itself.  The goal is to help retail management understand more about customers and their service-related expectations.

The wait-time study examined perceived versus actual wait time, since research holds that individuals are poor estimators of time duration. Researchers also know less about what external issues influence consumer dissatisfaction during the wait than they do about how waiting for a service can impact how consumers evaluate that service.

To complete the study, the banking and haircutting industries were examined in two Southeast cities. Four hundred five customers for banking services and 439 for haircutting were surveyed.

Respondents were asked to answer a two-page survey about a recent service experience. Follow-up phone calls to 20 percent of the sample verified selected responses and further validated the data collection procedure.

A former interior designer, Baker was especially interested in how environment affects the perceptions of waiting.

“When customers are made to wait, they may leave the store without even making a purchase,” she said. “Any time you make a customer wait, the delivery process is compromised, which is bad for business.”

It’s a never-ending issue in the service sector.

“If managers make the waiting experience less frustrating for customers, the evaluations of the wait and the company should improve.”

What Baker found could help retailers. Her research points to five factors that affect the wait and what retailers can do to curtail negative customer experiences:

1. Filled time: Customers were happier when their time was filled or they were distracted, such as by reading a magazine, watching television or listening to music.
2. Anxiety: Customer anxiety over the wait or over a non-shopping-related issue may make the wait seem longer. Managers or sales associates who simply acknowledge that there is a wait and that they know it is an inconvenience may lessen feelings of dissatisfaction.
3. Perceived justice: Whether customers perceive the wait period to be equitable — everybody’s waiting, not just me — directly affects the experience. Customers want to feel important and to be served equally.
4. Affective commitment: The emotional attachments a customer has to a retailer may counter wait dissatisfaction because loyal customers have higher customer service expectations. They believe they should get more or specialized services for their patronage.
5. Quality of the physical environment: Customers are happier and easier to please in a waiting area that is attractive and comfortable.

The study introduced the concept of regret into the wait time literature, asking customers how they felt when they were made to wait.

“The results were resounding,” Baker said. “Customers who felt they had longer wait times were more likely to feel regret for choosing that retailer. And this regret can mean that customers don’t return.”

Baker asserts that adding more checkout queues or sales associates may not solve the problem. Instead, managers need to understand consumers’ perceptions of wait time in order to minimize post-purchase regret.

The overriding factor of the study: Retailers can keep their customers happy as they stand in line. Under the right circumstances, people will overlook being made to wait — at least for a while.

Avatars in Online Shopping
Then there’s e-tailing. Baker; Liz C. Wang, assistant professor of business at the University of Dallas; Judy A. Wagner, assistant professor of marketing and supply chain management at East Carolina University; and Kirk Wakefield, professor of marketing at Baylor University, examined the impact on online shopping of avatars such as the Microsoft paperclip and Anna, the humanlike assistant on IKEA’s Web site.

Baker says this is the first [or: only the second, this is one of the first two studies] study of the avatar in marketing research.

Social response theory suggests that people treat a computer as “human” when it assumes lifelike characteristics. Given this, the study attempted to determine two things: whether an avatar results in socialness perceptions for retail consumers, and the processes through which these perceptions drive online shopping.

Phase one of the study asked 337 undergraduate business students from a large southwestern university to browse two experimental travel Web sites and then complete a questionnaire to measure their experiences. College-age students were chosen based on a study showing that more than 95 percent of this group use the Internet and more than 91 percent make online purchases. Based on pre-test results, excursions were revealed to be the most frequently purchased online service by the group.

Wang, Baker’s former doctoral student, created both Web sites to contain the same textual information, page design and navigation. One, however, was hosted by an avatar — a female tour guide character with a friendly demeanor and professional appearance.

The avatar greeted customers in a pop-up window on the home page, asking questions related to their travel needs, which then prompted the respondent to click yes or no. The avatar’s statements included, “Thanks! That will help me provide you with the most appropriate travel information.” This interaction fostered a feeling that the information was being customized.

Results showed that the students preferred the shopping experience with the avatar and they rated her voice and pleasantness above average.

Baker’s team enhanced the study in a second phase by using a more utilitarian product — custom window blinds — and exposed an online consumer research panel to preexisting Web sites. Similar to the first study, an interactive Web site using a video of a real person was juxtaposed with a Web site that included only text and limited interactive activity.

Adult, non-student homeowners were randomly recruited from 1.5 million consumers. Over two days, 250 adults were exposed to the two Web sites, with 80 percent meeting the video guide.
The results showed strong support for the perception of social interaction online. Customers had a more positive reaction and better shopping experiences with the assistance of the streaming video.

For managers, this shows the importance of investing in a strong Web site that includes interactivity.

“Avatars aren’t expensive, and they are easy to test prior to Web-site launch,” Baker said. Factors such as the avatar’s voice should be tested at length. If the voice sounds robot-like, customers might be turned off. Social characteristics that don’t work for a business are easy to alter and retest, Baker added.

“More and more companies will be investing in this technology to improve consumers’ online experiences, so tech companies are going to be forced to create some pretty interesting social actors as well as a site that flows well. While an avatar can certainly boost business, it won’t work on a poorly put together site.”

These findings show that some of the expected responses to customer-employee interactions found in brick-and-mortar stores can be induced by using social cues on the Web sites.

While customers might complain about an in-store experience, the surveys offer proof that they want to be greeted and made to feel as if their shopping experiences are important.

Julie Baker is an assistant professor of marketing in the M.J. Neeley School of Business. Before teaching MBA and undergraduate courses at TCU, she taught marketing courses in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. She has published five works in marketing and retailing journals, including “Excitement at the Mall: Determinants and Effects on Shopping Response,” “The Influence of Store Environment on Quality Inferences and Store Image” and ”Can a Retail Web Site Be Social?” She received her bachelor’s degree in applied art/interior design at Iowa State University, her master’s degree in textiles, clothing and design from the University of Nebraska and her doctoral degree in marketing from Texas A&M University. She has received numerous awards, including the UTA    College of Business Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in 1995.

Her recent study “It Depends: Moderating the Relationships Between Perceived Waiting Time, Dissatisfaction and Regret” (yet to be published) was a collaboration with colleagues Brian L. Bordeau, assistant professor of marketing at Auburn University; E. Deanne Brocato, assistant professor of marketing at Iowa State University and Baker’s former doctoral student; J. Joseph Cronin Jr., the Carl DeSantis Professor of Business Administration at Florida State University; and Clay M. Voorhees, assistant professor of marketing and supply chain management at Michigan State University. It probes the aspects that brick-and-mortar retailers can control to reduce customer dissatisfaction.