Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Conference Track
Service Marketing/ Non-Profit Marketing/ Ethics
Publication Date
2014
Abstract
Many service providers now use social media, both as a way to interact efficiently with their customers, and as a means of gathering customer data needed to better manage customer relationships. Thus, social media can both provide service and assist in developing better future service. In the present research, we examine in detail whether and how social media perform the first of these tasks by examining its use as a tool for online service benefit provision. Then, we consider how benefits customers receive from maintaining relationships with service providers via social media impact outcomes, including reported relationship strength, customer loyalty, commitment, and intention to continue with the service. We also consider how customer choices regarding characteristics of the relationship itself (duration and frequency of interaction) may impact its effectiveness at driving these outcomes. The results of this study will contribute to theory by examining how existing relationship theory applies to relationships between online firms and their customers. We observe how moving a relationship online changes the impacts observed in more traditional environments. We also consider moderators (duration and frequency of interaction) that we do not believe have been considered previously in online settings. Finally, we offer managerial implications related to design of online services.
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
Digital Commons@Georgia Southern License
Recommended Citation
Fowler, Kendra and Bridges, Eileen, "Online Service Benefits’ Impact on Relationship Strength, Quality, & Continuation Intention" (2014). Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2014. 33.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/amtp-proceedings_2014/33
About the Authors
Kendra Fowler is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Youngstown State University. Before obtaining her Ph.D. in Marketing at Kent State University, she was the senior marketing research analyst for a daily newspaper and worked as a freelance research consultant. Her primary research and teaching interests include service marketing and retailing.
Eileen Bridges is a Professor of Marketing at Kent State University. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing from Northwestern University, and was an Assistant Professor at Rice University prior to moving to Kent State in 1994. In addition, she has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales and at the University of Southern Denmark. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Service Industries Journal, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Service Research and Managing Service Quality. Her current research interests are in service marketing and management.