Review of literature for topic identification on service research with respect to electronic service

quality

Service is an important aspect in the customer’s day to day life. In the year 2013-14,
Services GDP growth amounted to 6.8% alone, despite the overall GDP growth which amounted
only to 4.7%. The Services sector India is growing rapidly with an annual growth rate at 9%,
which is just less than china’s annual growth rate 10.9%. Services sector occupy a major
proportion in India’s GDP of about 57%. (The Hindu Newspaper July 9, 2014).

So, in order to increase the effectivity of the services, we should implement the services
in a “new dimension”. Already, there is much work done in the area of services, regarding its
improvement i.e., service quality improvement.

But, still there seems to be a gap, in the effectiveness of “SERVICE QUALITY

ASSESSMENT”, when it is thought in consumer’s perspective.

Even though there are 5 dimensions like Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy,
Responsiveness ( ) which are used to measure the service quality, the assessment of service
quality is felt non comprehensive.

Because consumers are potentially exposed to the possibility of being harmed (Baker,
Gentry and Rittenburg, 2005). Consumers may not have much knowledge about the products that
are to be served, which becomes an obstacle for them to decide the extent to which they are to be
served and to decide about a particular service. Besides this, services are understood by
experiencing them. So, the service providers and customers combinedly should co-create the
services (Prahaladh and Ramaswamy,2004).

To make the assessment of service quality much more comprehensive, a new dimension
called “Consumer well-being outcomes” is to be added.

Consideration of consumer well-being outcomes is done very less in Traditional Service

Research (Anderson, Laurel, et.al).
 So, after the inclusion of consumer well-being outcomes, the assessment of service
quality becomes more comprehensive.

Transformative Consumer Research:

It means some investigations that are framed by a fundamental problem or opportunity and that
strive to respect, uphold and improve the life in relation to myriad conditions, demands,
potentialities and effects of consumption (Mick,2006).

Here, fundamental problem or opportunity means consumer welfare aspects. Here, the
investigations strive to respect, uphold, improve the life with respect to demands, potentialities
and effects of consumption.

Transformative Service Research:

It lies at the intersection of service research and transformative consumer research and it focuses
on well-being outcomes related to the intersection of service entities and consumer entities
(Anderson, Laurel, et.al).

Well-Being Outcomes:

1) Literacy 2)Happiness 3)Health 4)Decreasing disparity 5)Access

 In the study of Transformative Service Research done by Anderson, Laurel et.al, the
sectors of finance, health, social service were studied.
 Now there is a scope of doing the same study in Electronic Retailing Service Sector, in
which the service quality assessment can be done, not only by using Multiple-Item Scale,
but also by including the Well-being outcomes.
 Here, in the electronic service quality scale, 8 dimensions are used. They are

1. Efficiency
 2. System availability

3. Fulfillment

4. Privacy

5. Responsiveness

6. Compensation

7. Perceived value

8. Loyalty intensions (Zeithaml, Valarie A., A. Parasuraman, and Arvind Malhotra.

2000 ).

 By including the well-being outcomes, we may add two more dimensions like

1. Decreasing disparity 2.Literacy 3. Health etc

to make service quality assessment more comprehensive

Decreasing disparity:

 This can be done by implementing toll-free numbers to clear common doubts in

all languages which decreases the disparity between literates and illiterates.
 Similarly e-retail services should offer products for all sectors of customers,
thereby decreasing the disparity between high-end customers and low end
customers.

Literacy:

 The e-service providers should inform the customers about the products genuinely
by providing the feedback of the previous customers who used the product and
rating the product according to the positive and negative feedbacks provided.
  Including a sub-section in the website called as Consumer Forum

Health:

 The e-service providers should sell the products which enhances the customers
health.

Summary:

 Rich literature is available in domain of Service Quality which shows the

conventional outcomes like Satisfaction, Loyalty, Perceived value etc, but these
well-being outcomes are not been focused.
 As this is quality conscious work, we should integrate Transformative Service
Research construct along with E-Service quality construct to make the service
quality assessment more comprehensive.