Let customers touch it without touching: Online customer experience management

The Internet has been growing as a shopping channel. However, e-commerce has inherent limitations in both sensory and emotional cues, which are two critical factors for optimal customer experience. The first limitation is the lack of product touch, which means the inability of customers to physically examine products prior to purchase. The second limitation is the absence of a salesperson, which means the lack of interpersonal contact between sellers and consumers. Because of both the lack of product touch and interpersonal contact on the Internet and the sparsity of research about this, the purpose of this dissertation was to explore possible tools for replacing product touch and salesperson on e-commerce websites. This dissertation consists of three studies. As the exploratory step of this dissertation, Study 1 is a qualitative study in which the concept of need for salesperson is defined and there is a search for the e-commerce features that possibly compensate for the absence of a salesperson on the Internet. The results of Study 1 provide two possible dimensions for need for salesperson. Ten online features for replacing the salesperson were also identified. A two-dimensional (autotelic and instrumental) 8-item scale for need for salesperson was developed in Study 2. This scale was developed based on the results of Study 1 along with the literature review and was checked for reliability and validity. Finally, in Study 3, there was an examination of whether e-commerce features can compensate for the lack of product touch and the absence of a salesperson on the Internet. The results confirmed that only instrumental need for salesperson can be replaced by either customer-based information or contact features. This dissertation was the first attempt to develop a need for salesperson scale. Although the current study validated the scale, a future study should further validate this scale in different contexts. The results of this study also suggest that e-tailers can increase customer satisfaction by implementing effective customer-based information (e.g., customer reviews) and e-contact features (e.g., live chatting with a salesperson)