The role of e-service quality in propelling brand attachment and willingness to pay

Abstract

Overall e-service quality is an important factor in the e-commerce business context. Organizations are competing to meet and exceed the quality expectations of their customers. Service firms that are purely providing services like banks are trying to brand themselves to retain and enhance their customer pool. However, in literature, it is less known that what formulates overall e-service quality and what can be the favoring benefits of overall e-service quality. This study tends to answer such questions by considering the potential factors as antecedents to overall e-service quality and the potential outcomes of overall e-service quality. Hence, the aim of the study is to examine the impact of website design, fulfilment, customer e-service, and security on overall e-service quality. Thereof, the impact of overall e-service quality on e-satisfaction, brand attachment, and willingness to pay. This study also considers the mediating role of e-satisfaction between overall e-service quality, brand attachment, and willingness to pay. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect the data of banking industry customers who are using online banking services. Partial least structural equation modelling was used to analyze the useable data of 425 customers. Results indicate that the impact of website design on overall e-service quality was not supported, while the impact of fulfilment, customer e-service, and security on overall e-service quality was supported. In addition to this, the mediating role of e-satisfaction between overall eservice quality and willingness to pay was not supported. While the mediating role of e-satisfaction between overall e-service quality and brand attachment was supported. Further, the mediating role of brand attachment between overall e-service quality and willingness to pay was also supported. Such findings have very important implications for banking industry practitioners and researchers and research students. To enhance brand attachment, practitioners can priorities their strategies to enhance the perception of overall e-service quality by focusing on fulfilment, customer e-service, and security on overall e-service quality. While overall e-service quality also supports customers' e-satisfaction and willingness to pay in addition to the brand attachment to enhance the bank's total customer pool. For researchers, this study opens a new avenue to strengthen brand attachment in e-commerce. Such an avenue will further strengthen the research by considering brand attachment as an important construct in e-commerce. Further, for research students can benefit from the current study by considering its future research directions.