Critical service quality encounters on the Web: an exploratory study

Abstract

Following the proliferation of e‐commerce and the Internet, there has been increasing interest in the evaluation of Web sites. However, most research on service quality evaluation has focused on people‐based services, rather than technologically‐based services. Specifically there is a paucity of research addressing service quality offered through Web sites. This paper addresses this issue by exploring critical factors in Web site service quality perceptions, using the critical incident technique. The paper further evaluates whether the same factors contribute to high and low quality perceptions. Additionally, the paper investigates the effect of the customer's search behavior while visiting the Web site (goal directed or experiential) on service quality perceptions. Implications for managers are addressed.