Classifying potential users of live chat services and chatbots

Live chat services and chatbot functionalities are experiencing significant growth within companies in the financial sector and growing consumer interest. But which consumers (segments) are more or less interested in these tools? Companies with an online presence would be well advised to profile potential users of these two important tools. This study seeks to classify potential users of live chat services and chatbots. A telephone interview questionnaire is administered to 342 panelists of a recognized Canadian research firm. A two-step cluster analysis is used to reveal natural groupings in the data set. Research conducted identifies four distinct segments, namely Women divided interest, Men partially interested, Age 35–44 partially interested and Older disinterested. This study brings to the fore information essential to the development of effective marketing strategies for reaching the different segments [e.g. develop and evidence an online end-to-end purchasing process for segment (1); provide good Web visibility for segment (2); ensure the presence of competitive offers and Web comparators for segment (3); and, pursue a more traditional approach for segment (4)]. This study represents the first ever classification of individuals based on their interest in emerging services (live chat services and chatbots).

     

Towards a better understanding of mobile banking: the impact of customer experience on trust and commitment

In the current context of ubiquitous connectedness through portable mobile devices and services, it is important to comprehend more fully the nature of consumer/bank interactions and relationships. At the same time, firms in the service sector are trying to provide customers with impactful positive experiences. This article examines the impact of mobile banking experience on trust and commitment based on the customer experience dimensions defined by Schmitt and expanded to include the negative aspect of the affective dimension. A total of 396 panellists of a recognized Canadian research firm responded to a self-administered online questionnaire. Findings demonstrate that the cognitive and negative affective dimensions of mobile experience impact trust, whereas the positive affective/sensory dimension influences commitment. The behavioural and social dimensions do not have significant impacts. This study enriches the theoretical corpus of knowledge in customer experience, relationship marketing and m-banking literature, lending practical implications for mobile services managers. Financial institutions, for example, should offer sensory mobile applications designed to appeal to the eye or to the touch (positive affective/sensory dimension), provide tools and information intended to arouse user curiosity and provoke reflection (cognitive dimension), while avoiding negative experiences which can lead to damaging feelings/emotions such as disappointment and anger (negative affective dimension).     

The effects of customer age and recovery strategies in a service failure setting

The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between the type of service failure, age and the customer's negative emotions after a service failure; as well as the relationship between these emotions, the recovery strategies executed and service recovery satisfaction. The proposed model is tested on a sample of financial services customers who suffered some type of failure. The results indicate that the customer's age has a negative impact on the intensity of the negative emotions experienced after a service failure. In addition, the type of service failure (process or outcome) interacts with the age variable on its effect on these negative emotions. Finally, results also show that recovery strategies offset the negative effect of negative emotions on customer satisfaction and that a compensation strategy is more efficient if offered quickly.     

Customer readiness to co-production of mobile banking services: a customer-only co-production perspective

This paper aimed to identify the antecedents and corollary of customer readiness for co-production in customer-only co-production services using mobile banking services as a context. Using a structured questionnaire, data were gathered from a sample of mobile banking customers in Ghana and the UK and the data analysis was facilitated by structural equation modelling. From the findings, the antecedents were customer socialisation, customer self-efficacy and customer motivation and the corollary was service productivity. The findings provide managers of customer-only co-production or technology-based services particularly mobile banking services with the specific factors that can be managed strategically and tactically to enhance customer readiness for co-production and service productivity. This study is one of a kind to conceptualise and empirically identify the antecedents and corollary of customer readiness for co-production within the customer-only co-production context. However, as the study was limited to mobile banking services, future studies might test the research model in other customer-only technology-based services.

     

The impact of different media channels on consumers and the wastage of potential advertising opportunities through existing customer communications

The first section of this paper investigates the impact of different media channels on the consumer, including television advertising, direct mail, direct Email and SMS advertising. It reveals that existing customer communications such as bills, statements and customer service letters top the survey commanding an average 38 seconds of consumer attention time. The second half of this report looks into the wastage of existing customer communications as an advertising tool. The research indicates that £365m of potential advertising opportunity is wasted by the financial services sector each year, which is the largest wastage of the industries surveyed. The retail banking sector wastes the highest proportion, with credit card issuers coming second. Direct insurance providers fare much better, although the number of customer interactions is far fewer than with credit card issuers or banks.     

Effects of perceived cost,service quality,and customer satisfaction on health insurance service continuance

This paper aims to contribute to the universal discourse on financial services continuance behavior by examining the impact of service cost on customers’ service-quality perception and service continuance intention. It presents the results of an empirical study that has explored the impacts of service cost, service quality, and customer satisfaction on health insurance customers’ behavioral intention toward continuing or discontinuing with their service providers. Very few studies had examined the impact of service cost on service-quality perception. Our study attempts to fill that gap. A sample of 820 customers was surveyed, and 624 usable responses were analyzed with ANOVA, standard multiple regression, and logistic regression. Our findings indicate that, although highly satisfied health insurance customers will most likely retain their current service providers, customer dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to discontinuance. Our results also provide some operational implications for health insurance managers, with strategies for reducing attrition and improving customer retention.     

Implications of Web assurance services on e-commerce

The ongoing rapid growth in the popularity of the Internet is having a revolutionary impact on the way companies do business. Doing business online has become a necessity, not an option. However, some consumers are not completely comfortable using the Internet for transacting business because of concerns regarding security of their transactions. For these situations, consumer trust and confidence can be enhanced by a Web assurance service such as AICPA Trust Services. Building on prior studies, the study provides comprehensive information on current reporting requirements, differences among Web assurance services, and results of a recent consumer survey to obtain perceptions of Web assurance services. The theoretical foundation of the current study is based on the Assurance Gaps Model [Burke, K. G., Kovar, S. E., & Prenshaw, P. J. (2004). Unraveling the Expectations Gap: An Assurance Gaps Model and illustrative application. Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research, 7, 169–193]. E-business consumers (users of Web assurance services) can be dichotomized into older consumers and younger consumers, who have different expectations based on information asymmetries. Findings indicate that consumers value Web Assurance services, but younger consumers place greater value on these services than older consumers.     

Higher education

There is a growing interest in the use of marketing techniques and approaches in the management of the public services, as a result of changed perceptions of public services, and the developments in public service management in the last decade. This article discusses the nature of marketing and distinguishes strategic marketing from consumer marketing. The particular difficulties of marketing public services are considered. Specific development of marketing approaches in the civil service, local government, and the National Health Service are discussed. Finally, it is argued that the applicability of marketing concepts in the public services is limited because of the nature of the polity and the relationship between states and citizens.     

Exploring usage of mobile banking apps in the UAE: a categorical regression analysis

The banking sector has seen major changes with advances in technology. Electronic financial transactions are gradually taking over traditional banking services in terms of transferring funds, utility payments, insurance premium, mortgages and even stock trading. Despite the widespread popularity of smartphones and the advantages of mobile banking, the adoption rates of the mobile apps have been very low all over the world. Our study explored the consumer acceptance of mobile apps in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by using a structured online questionnaire that was designed using standard variables from the Technology Acceptance Model. Principal component analysis was used to identify and score these factors for the subsequent categorical regression analysis. Consumers were assigned numerical categories depending on their level of usage of the app, and the CATREG nonlinear technique was used to determine the significance of technology acceptance factors. The results show that almost two-thirds of the sample were currently using Mobile Banking apps, and they predominantly belonged to the 30–40 age-group. Perceived usefulness and available information were identified as the main factors influencing acceptance and level of usage of mobile banking apps. This study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by identifying consumers according to their level of usage and adopting the categorical regression model, which has not been attempted earlier. The results provide important insights for banking professionals in the UAE, in terms of marketing initiatives, information technology and customer service.

     

Adoption of electronic banking services in India: an extension of UTAUT2 model

Indian banks have paid sufficient attention to recent innovations in banking services delivery such as e-banking, mobile banking, mobile payment, e-wallet, and e-money services, still the acceptance of these services among consumers is sluggish. Therefore, the present study aims to identify the intention of consumers to adopt various e-banking services. The study adopted the UTAUT2 model (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) and extended it with constructs such as consumer innovativeness, perceived risk, and security information availability. The extended research model was tested using a questionnaire-based response collected from 721 consumers. CB-SEM (Covariance-based structural equation modeling) was used to examine the hypotheses. An empirical examination of the model helped explain the impact of the UTAUT2 model's constructs in predicting adoption intention toward e-banking services. The study also revealed the importance and impact of newly incorporated variables in explaining consumers' adoption intention toward e-banking services. The study has provided some useful insight into the factors influencing consumers' intention to adopt e-banking services to shed new light.

     

Measuring service fairness and its impact on service quality and satisfaction: a study of Indian Banking Services

As very few studies have investigated banking services from fairness perspective and none of the studies have attempted to measure service fairness in Indian retail banking services context, the paper seeks to investigate service fairness in Indian retail banking services context. It attempts to validate the existing four-dimensional service fairness scale and investigates its applicability in the retail banking industry. The conceptual model depicting the relationship between service fairness, service quality and customer satisfaction was tested using SEM. The results established reliability and validity of the scale and the impact of service fairness on service quality and customer satisfaction. The impact of individual fairness dimensions on these two customer evaluation variables is also studied. The paper discusses important implications of the findings and presents valuable insights for the practitioners as well as academia.     

Price satisfaction and personnel efficiency as antecedents of overall satisfaction from consumer credit products and positive word of mouth

The paper aims to explore the potential impact of ‘bank personnel efficiency’ and ‘price satisfaction’ on overall customer satisfaction of consumer credit products and positive word of mouth (WOM). Furthermore it aims to provide bank managers with useful insights into the development of high quality relationships with customers. ‘Personnel efficiency’, is related to the human factor of service quality, while ‘price satisfaction’ refers to the customers’ subjective view of the bank's pricing policy. The research involved a review of the available literature on service quality dimensions and their effect on satisfaction and WOM. For the collection of data, a survey was designed and conducted in the greater area of Athens, Greece. The research questionnaire was administered by means of personal interviews to 750 bank customers. Data analysis, using structural equation modelling, suggests that ‘personnel efficiency’ and ‘price satisfaction’ are antecedents of overall ‘customer satisfaction’, which is a prerequisite for positive ‘word of mouth’.     

The numerical calculation of U(w,t), the probability of non-ruin in an interval (0, t)

Summary

A formula for U(w, t), the distribution function of the waiting time of a potential customer who joins a queue with a single server at epoch t after service commences without a queue was derived for dam theory by Gani & Prabhu (1959) and for queues by Bene? (1960). Here we use it to calculate numerically the probability of non-ruin in risk theory with an assumption that X(t), the accumulated claims during the interval (0, t), is a stochastic process with independent increments occurring at the event points of a stationary process. The difficulties encountered are described in some detail and suggestions made for the attainment of three-decimal accuracy in U(w, t).     

A consumer‐oriented culture?

Public sector managers are asked to ‘stay close to the customer’ and to develop a consumer‐oriented culture. While important lessons from the private sector ‐ if properly translated—can be applied to the public sector, this does not mean that existing skills need to be abandoned, rather supplemented.     

Quantifying the benefits of entry into local phone service

Local telecommunications competition was an important goal of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. We evaluate the consumer welfare effects of entry into residential local telephone service in New York State using household‐level data from September 1999 to March 2003. We address the prevalence of nonlinear tariffs by developing a discrete/continuous demand model that allows for service bundling and unobservable provider quality. We find that the average subscriber to the entrants' services gains a monthly equivalent of $2.33, or 6.2% of her bill, in welfare from competition. These gains accrue primarily from firm differentiation and new plan introductions rather than from price effects.     

Risk as feelings or risk and feelings? A cross‐lagged panel analysis

This article focuses on affective and cognitive processes underlying the perception of risk. A limitation with most process models of affect/cognition is that they include only concurrent emotions. By following a group (n?=?129) of military sailors prospectively during an international operation, we explored longitudinal relations between perceived risk and related feelings.

Longitudinal cross‐lagged path models were estimated to explore the relationships between perceived risk, worry, and emotional distress. Results gave support to earlier studies by showing that cross‐sectional measures of risk and worry were weakly related. Across time, worry and emotional distress were reciprocally related. Perceived risk had impact on worry but not on emotional distress. Neither worry nor emotional distress influenced perceived risk.

The risk‐as‐feelings hypothesis postulates a direct effect of feelings onto behavioural choice, and a reciprocal relation between cognitive evaluations and feelings.

Our findings do not support a reciprocal relation between judgements of risk and feelings, but an impact from risk on to worry. Between various measures of feelings reciprocity seems to exist. Further replications, including also behavioural measures, are needed.     

Integration of Financial Services

Abstract

Integration financial services is a term with many meanings. Definitions might include:

• ownership of different segments of financial services,

• the distribution of products of one segment by another, and

• a consumer-centric strategy driven to satisfy the needs of the customer regardless of organizational structures.

For the purposes of my paper, I will define it as the erasing of boundaries leading to consumers receiving value propositions that are not restricted by traditional industry segment barriers.     

A comparison of conventional versus Islamic banking customers attitudes and judgment

This investigates the impact of customer attitude and judgment regarding conventional and Islamic banking system in Pakistan. This study attempts to find out, how the customers of Islamic banks perceive about Islamic banking practices in terms of Shariah compliance and conventional banking system regarding earning more profits. This study consists on primary data through a well design questionnaire. Four hundred and thirty (430) questionnaires were distributed among different customers of all three types of banking, such as Islamic, conventional and stand-alone branches in order to investigate customer’s attitude and judgment toward banking system. The findings indicate that overall 28% of Islamic banking customers don’t know the essential concept of Islamic financial institution’s in Pakistan. Furthermore, 54% customers of conventional banking show their interest to convert their accounts toward Islamic banks.

     

Consumer strategy in the public sector: Are you being served?

If your consumers had a choice, would they still choose you? Looking at your service through their eyes is a useful first step in working towards a positive answer to that question. Public sector managers need market sensitivity, whether or not they are monopoly suppliers of services.