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1 MEASURING USERS PERCEIVED PORTAL SERVICE QUALITY - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY Tsuang Kuo, Iuan-Yuan Lu, Chiung-Hui Huang, and Guo-Chiang Wu College of Management National Sun Yat-sen University Koahsiung 804, Taiwan ABSTRACT Portals can be used internally for companies to provide employees with streamlined access to corporate information resources. To deliver superior service quality, managers of companies with Web presences must first understand how customers perceive and evaluate online service. Based on SERVQUAL model, a multi-dimensional scale was developed to analyze user-perceived portal quality. The results found that customer satisfaction are related to four factors: (1) empathy, (2) ease of use, (3) information quality, and (4) accessibility. Users perceived service quality is the most effective indicator to model portal customer satisfaction. These findings will greatly improve the efficiency of business organizations and managers who actively seek ways to improve their service through Web technology. PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.pdffactory.com

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Page 1: MEASURING USERS PERCEIVED PORTAL SERVICE QUALITY

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MEASURING USERS PERCEIVED PORTAL SERVICE QUALITY

- AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Tsuang Kuo, Iuan-Yuan Lu, Chiung-Hui Huang, and Guo-Chiang Wu

College of Management

National Sun Yat-sen University

Koahsiung 804, Taiwan

ABSTRACT Portals can be used internally for companies to provide employees with

streamlined access to corporate information resources. To deliver superior service quality,

managers of companies with Web presences must first understand how customers

perceive and evaluate online service. Based on SERVQUAL model, a multi-dimensional

scale was developed to analyze user-perceived portal quality. The results found that

customer satisfaction are related to four factors: (1) empathy, (2) ease of use, (3)

information quality, and (4) accessibility. Users perceived service quality is the most

effective indicator to model portal customer satisfaction. These findings will greatly

improve the efficiency of business organizations and managers who actively seek ways to

improve their service through Web technology.

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INTRODUCTION

With the proliferation of the Internet applications, the information resources of the World

Wide Web have become so vast and rich. Portals have emerged to help individuals and

organizations locate information more efficiently. A portal is a web site that provides an

initial point of entry to the Web or to internal data of a company. In addition to being

jump off points to content provided by others, an Internet portal, such as Yahoo!, is also

the destination for news, games, maps, shopping, and so forth (Strauss and Frost, 2000).

Companies are also building their own internal portals to provide employees with

streamlined access to corporate information resources. The goal of a corporate portal is to

merge all of the employees’ information and communication needs into a single interface.

Thus, corporate portals access internal documents, data warehouses, groupware, e-mail,

and calendars, in addition to the Web.

Organizations investing in web technologies are looking forward to realizing the

benefits of these investments. However, this would not be possible without understanding

the attributes that contribute to portal visitors having a satisfying, high quality online

experience of their portal sites. While many of the instruments to measure information

and system quality were developed in the context relevant to web designers, few have

focused systematically on what web users really desire (Aladwani and Palvia, 2002). The

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purpose of this project is to understand online service quality for Web sites in general,

portals in particular. As these quality attributes will provides means of measuring service

quality and effective and meaningful strategy to remain productive.

TRADITIONAL SERVICE QUALITY

Unlike goods quality, which can be measured objectively by such indicators as durability

and number of defects, service quality is elusive and maybe difficult to measure. It is

subjective and personal construct that reflects customers’ potential entertainment and

emotional worth. Deriving from focus group interviews, Parasuraman et al. (1985)

identified 10 basic dimensions that reflect service attributes used by customers in

evaluating the quality of service provided by service businesses.

The SERVQUAL model, a multiple-item instrument and first developed by

Parasuraman et al. (1988), has been widely tested for measuring customer perceptions of

service quality. Empirical data for testing and refining the instrument were obtained from

customers spread across five different service categories – appliance repair and

maintenance, retailing banking, long-distance telephone, securities brokerage, and credit

cards. The items of SERVQUAL were grouped into five distinct dimensions:

l Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel.

l Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.

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l Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.

l Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust

and confidence.

l Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.

Service quality is determined by the interaction of all those factors that affect the

process of making products/services available to customers. Multiple-attributes models

have been widely adopted to measure service quality ever since.

Many replication researches refined SERVQUAL and reapplied it in a variety of

settings. Gradually, research has further developed service quality measurement with

refinements suitable for particular circumstances. Disagreements between these studies

have focused on two major issues, (1) lack of consensus as to how many dimensions of

service quality and (2) causal linkage between satisfaction and quality (Asubonteng,

McCleary, and Swan, 1996). Services are heterogeneous: their performance often varies

from producer to producer, from customer to customer, and from day to day. Li, Tan, and

Xie (2002) argue that the number of service quality dimensions is contextual, and might

be a function of the particular service industry. Some dimensions that are highly

correlated may collapse into one distinct dimension, while one dimension may divide into

two distinct dimensions in the specific domain of the study. Several of the expressed

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attributes of service quality involved ideal points that varied among customers. For

example, responsiveness via emails, personalization, and information and graphic are

attributes on which desires vary across customers (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Malhotra,

2002). Therefore, the service quality skeleton, when necessary, can be adapted and

supplemented to fit the needs of a particular organization (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and

Berry, 1985). Disagreement concerning the proposed linkage between quality and

satisfaction has led to a division over causality. While one group supporting the

proposition that quality is an antecedent of consumer satisfaction (Cronin and Taylor,

1992), the other group supporting the proposition that satisfaction leads to quality. Other

suggests that quality and satisfaction are determined by the same attributes (Asubonteng,

McCleary, and Swan, 1996).

WEB-BASED SERVICE QUALITY

Web-based service quality is defined as the extent to which services based on the web

technology facilitate the effective and efficient online communication, purchase and

delivery of product/service (Li, Tan, and Xie, 2002). As electronic shopping incorporates

many of the same characteristics as real shopping, measurement of Web-based service

quality; therefore, is expected to be multi-dimensional in nature. Two principle

differences between web-based and traditional services quality are presented below:

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(1) Web-based customer service is much more efficient than traditional service.

Websites can simultaneously provide a close connection between customers and

companies, and among the customers themselves. Traditional customer service is

labor intensive and time consuming.

(2) Active versus passive. Web customers are not passive recipients of marketing and

selling and are instead central players who experience increased control in the

online environment (Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2001). Web-based customer service

provides information on the Internet for customers who in turn perform

self-service. Although other information technology makes customers self-service

possible, traditional service relies on human more than web-based service.

Though, the majority of Web quality attributes and scales are relevant to Web designers

than Web users. Academic research has acknowledged a number of criteria that influence

customers in evaluating Web sites in general and service quality delivery through Web

sites in particular. The following measurement variables were derived from the study of

information systems and marketing literature.

Convenience. Convenience has often been defined in terms of saving time and effort,

including physical and mental efforts. In other words, convenience means time saving,

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effort savings, and accessibility (location and hours availability) (Wolfinbarger and Gilly,

2001). Websites are the virtual storefront of business. Content refers to the information,

features, or services that are offered in the web site. Customers are in control of what they

want to read, when they want to read it. The web site structure should be constructed

logically to help users to find information (Huizingh, 2000). Product search functions,

site maps, product indices, and the overall site design and organization, are the features of

store navigation. Inadequate navigation and search engine capabilities will limit users’

ability to locate desired information on a web site.

Empathy. Web technology provides a perfect environment for empathy – “caring and

individualized attention the firm provides its customers” (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and

Berry, 1985). Because of the lack of face-to-face contact on a web site, web content

should be carefully designed to arrange and present customer service opportunities (Liu

and Arnett, 2000) according to customer need and navigation habits. Web pages are

written in hypertext, which provides the opportunity to build content that is intelligible

and interesting to people at different levels of understanding (Maroney, 1997). Hyperlinks

aid the discovery of new and useful information and allow users to drill down into more

detail as needed. Unfortunately, hypertext may also be confusing if inactive link exist.

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Nothing will drive away customers like a site full of dead links.

Ease of Use. As both the presence and operation of websites depend heavily on

information technology, they are often regarded as a type of information system. Website

is an interactive learning environment between customers and business. It is important to

increase customers’ abilities to learn how to browse and to find relevant information on

the Web (Liu and Arnett, 2000). Technology acceptance model (TAM) posits that

perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are the primary determinants of system

use (Davis, 1989). In the interactive web environment, consumers have the control of

information flow and have to perform two tasks: one is to understand the information and

the second is to manage the information flow (Ariely 2000). Ease of use will increase

customers’ ability to learn how to browse and to find relevant information on the Web. A

site’s search functions, download speed, overall design, and organization are among the

key elements that affect usability (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Malhotra, 2002).

Information Quality. Online users feel that they can more fully investigate options than

they can offline. Most of online customers want to serve themselves and will serve

themselves by locating information as long as it is relatively easy to find. Because the

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information resources of the World Wide Web are so vast and rich, it is important that

desired information could be accessed easily. Although search costs are dramatically

reduced on the Web, improvements still needed in areas such as reduction of irrelevant

information, improved information organization and better information processing aids

(Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2001). Variables used for measuring information quality include

accuracy, timeliness, relevance, flexible information presentation, customized

information presentation, price information, product/service comparability,

product/service differentiation, complete product/service description (Liu and Arnett,

2000). Along with text, information is also provided by appropriate use of graphics.

Fun. The likelihood of a repeat visit to a web site is enhanced when the visitors find the

visit enjoyable (Rice, 1997). Hedonic pleasure, such as enjoyment, excitement, feeling of

participation, escapism, and charming, of site design can motivate customer to participate,

promote customer excitement and concentration, and include charming features to attract

customers and to help them enjoy the visit (Liu and Arnett, 2000).

Reliability. The dominant dimension in traditional service quality, reliability, has also

been cited as an important predictor of web-based service quality (Palmer, Bailey, and

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Faraj, 1999; Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2002). Most studies have investigated the

commercial potential of the Web based almost entirely focus on the direct sales function

of the Web sites. A reliable system should ensure correct operations, rapid access, quick

error recovery, security, tracking order status, and privacy to enhance users’ confidence.

In the context of EC, trustworthy, dependable, and reliable characteristics are important to

trigger business transaction (Liu and Arnett, 2000). Customers should be able to trust the

system and use its on-line purchase capabilities. A transaction might be a simple purchase,

but in more complex situations, the supplier and customer have to interact several times

before all details of the order have been agreed (Huizingh, 2000). Web designers should

allow customers to track their on-line order status.

Responsiveness. Customer loyalty increase substantially when online buyers learned that

customer service representatives were available and were willing and able to resolve the

situation quickly. Some customers are busy and are not likely to make the effort to switch

as long as they can find the information they want in a timely fashion. E-mail assistance

helps satisfy the need for help online, but is sometimes perceived as being too slow.

Online buyers also often complain that e-mail responses are often not individualized for

them and thus do not resolve their problem. Online buyers largely do not expect or desire

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“high touch” service unless they have questions or problems with customer service, in

which case they expect relatively speedy answers responsive to their individual problems.

Accessibility. The distinguishing characteristic of networks is that they have no

boundaries. In today’s crowded cyberspace, Internet users have plenty of choice for

information. Since the geographic distance between Web sites has diminished, Web site

has to provide 7x24 around the clock service to serve their customers. It is a waste of

customer’s time for waiting information to be downloaded. Because users have many

opportunities of instance access from many potential sources, it becomes impossible to

retain web customers when the speed of download is slow.

Other Criteria. Freedom and control: Online shoppers will put off transactions because

of the lack of investment and the “always there” quality of online shopping. It is easy to

come back and complete a transaction at a later time when they have had more time to

think about it. Lack of sociality: Many online shoppers engage in low-commitment, high

involvement behavior as they leave sites easily without purchasing, but find their online

shopping trips interesting, informative, and useful (Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2001).

Information integration: When users can control the content, order, and duration (the

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amount of time the information is present) of product-relevant information, their ability to

integrate, and thereby use information is improved (Ariely, 2000).

MEASUREMENT OF USER PERCEIVED PORTAL SERVICE QUALITY

Though the basic principles of service quality are universally and equally valuable to both

online and offline businesses, academic research into the web-based service quality has

been addressed only relatively recent. SERVQUAL provides a useful framework, and

also a starting point, for developing multi-dimensional scale to analyze user-perceived

Web quality. The empirical work on online service quality so far, however, has focused

overwhelmingly on the online electronic commerce (EC) function, with few, if any,

studies of streamline internal business processes. This study focused on the use of

Internet technology for company’s internal use, i.e., portal, as well as on capturing key

characteristics of web site quality from the user’s perspective. With this intention in mind,

this study has deliberately excluded all the sale related activities of EC.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Based on the original SERVQUAL model, Li, Tan, and Xie (2002) modified some

dimensions and items to make them more applicable to web-based customer services, and

added additional items to represent more specific facets of the services studied. Their

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28-item instrument was developed to measures six dimensions of Web quality:

responsiveness, competence, quality of information, empathy, Web assistance, and

call-back systems. With this conceptual framework, an online survey was conducted to

collect web-based service quality information from an international customer’s

perspective.

Using the 28 questions (Li, Tan, and Xie, 2002) as the starting point for the

development of an item pool, this study deleted 6 items, which are purchase transaction

and post purchase related activities. 3 items were consolidated into closely related items.

As far as tangibles and assurance are concerned, two new items were created to

substituted two original items to capture the characteristic of portals. Two new portal

specific items were added for completion. Some modifications to the wording were made

to construct them relevant to the portal service environment. The final questionnaire,

shown in the Appendix, has 21 items.

The questionnaire has four sections. First section is used to measure customer’s

expectation of his/her favorite portal. Second section is the corresponding measure of

customers’ perceptions of his/her favorite portal site. Third, customer satisfactions were

evaluated by self-reported measures. Self-reported measures of behavior rather than

direct observations were used to determine the actual level of customer satisfaction. Five

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questions were constructed to rate the level of consumer satisfaction: overall satisfaction,

browsing experience, future visits, willing to recommend, willing to pay for service. The

last section contains demographic data.

A pilot test was conducted on 30 Web users to assess the semantic content and

readability of the questionnaire. Problems or difficulties, such as ambiguity of wordings,

misunderstanding of technical terms, were reported for further modification.

THE SAMPLE

Convenience sampling was adopted to gather data for this study. Requests for participants

were sent via emails to more than 300 MBA students during a two-week period in 2003.

Solicitation recipients were asked to forward the mailings to other interested people. The

questionnaire was posted on a web site for 14 days and received 1,305 hits. 772 visitors

completed the questionnaire. Total number of valid questionnaires is 608 copies after

incomplete questionnaires were deleted.

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Table 1 summarizes some of the demographic data of the respondents. The number of

female respondents is more than male’s. 83% of all the respondents’ age is between 19 to

30 years old. The majority user groups were listed as college students (56.41%),

government (9.21%) and manufacturing (9.05%). Almost all respondents have a higher

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education degree, college (53.5%) and graduate (43.9%). The characteristics were

reasonably consistent with the known profiles of online users.

Table 1 Demographic profile of respondents to the survey (n=608)

Characteristics Frequency Percentage

Male 298 49.01 Gender Female 310 50.99 13-18 10 1.64 19-24 292 48.03 25-30 213 35.03 31-35 47 7.73 36-40 20 3.29 41-45 18 2.96

Age

46 and up 8 1.32 Agriculture 2 0.33 Manufacturing 55 9.05 Information Tech. 43 7.07 Service 47 7.73 Government 56 9.21 Student 343 56.41

Occupation

Other 62 10.19 Secondary or below 16 2.6 College 325 53.5

Education

Graduate 267 43.9

The respondents are all very experienced net users and majority of them have more than 3

years of experience on the net (Table 2). Most of the respondents surf the net daily with

duration of 30 minutes to 3 hours. The survey found that Yahoo! has the most users

(81.91%) with a significant margin ahead of the second one (pchome.com.tw, 8.06%).

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Search (84.5%), free email (66.28%) and news (65.95%) top the list of frequently used

service categories from portal sites.

Table 2. Internet usage and preference

Characteristics Frequency Percentage 1 and under 1 0.16 1 - 2 4 0.66 2 - 3 33 5.43 3 - 4 71 11.68 4 - 5 121 19.90 5 - 6 156 25.66 6 - 7 98 16.12 7 - 8 55 9.05

Duration of Net Usage (year)

8 and up 69 11.35 0.5 and below 27 4.44 0.5 - 1 100 16.45 1 - 2 162 26.64 2 - 3 123 20.23 3 - 4 74 12.17 4 - 5 34 5.59

Daily Net Usage (Hours)

5 and up 88 14.47 Yahoo! Taiwan 498 81.91 pchome.com.tw 49 8.06 yam.com.tw 20 3.29 MSN Taiwan 10 1.64

Favorite Portal

Other 31 5.10 Search 511 84.05 Free email 403 66.28 News 401 65.95 News Letter 217 35.69

Frequently Used Services

Download 174 28.61

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Attributes and Dimensions Identification. As lack of consensus on dimensions of

service quality, an exploratory factor is performed to identify those effective items and

dimensions for the portal users. First, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling

adequacy was calculated for test of fitness. Kaiser (1974) argued if KMO is less than 0.5,

factor analysis is inappropriate. The KMO value of this research is 0.902. This clearly

suggests that factor analysis can be used to extract research factors. The Bartett sphere

test is also significant at the level of 0.0000 (Table 3).

Table 3 KMO and Bartett sphere test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin sample fitness test 0.902 χ2 4694.282 Bartett sphere test Degree of freedom 210 Significant level 0.0000

Several rules are typically applied when addressing how many factors to be extracted. To

obtain a meaningful or interpretable grouping of the variables, we employed the rule of

eigenvalue greater than 1, percentage of variance extracted accounts for at least 5% of the

common variance, and the factor loading is greater than 0.5. The initial result of the

exploratory factor analysis indicated that some construct revisions were needed.

The results from factor analysis suggests a 4-component structure (Table 4): (1)

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empathy, (2) ease of use, (3) information quality, and (4) accessibility. After re-specifying

the instruments, 17 items were retained.

Table 4 Factor loading for exploratory factor analysis Factor Cronbach’s Alpha R2 Factor Loading

Empathy 0.8278 19.327% 20. Feedback is customized exactly to my question 0.786 18. Questions are quickly responded 0.780 19. Relevant FAQ help customers to solve problems 0.722 17. WebPages can be personalized customized 0.703 13. Web sites has many interactive service features 0.604 16. Privacy is protected 0.522 Ease of Use 0.7783 14.659% 07. Navigation is easy 0.743 05. Information category is simple and straight forward 0.716 15. Available services are clear to customers 0.650 06. Web pages are visually appealing 0.593 14. Service is easy to locate 0.542 Information Quality 0.7753 13.441% 02. Information is current and timely 0.769 03. Information is accurate and relevant 0.734 01. Hyperlinks are valid 0.723 04. Information is rich in detail 0.590 Accessibility 0.7032 9.896% 10. Web pages load fast 0.777 08. Website is available all the time 0.741

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Reliability. In order to examine the construct were internally consistent of the current

service quality scale; reliability assessment was carried out using Cronbach’s alpha. A

low value of Cronbach’s alpha indicates the sample of items performs poorly in capturing

the construct that motivated the measure and verse visa. All Cronbach’s alphas (Table 4)

of the four dimensions exceed the minimum standard (0.70), suggested by Nunnally

(1978), which indicates that the scale is quite reliable.

Validity. To ensure content validity, a through examination was made of the relevant

literature. Pre-test was conducted to review the questionnaire for validity (measuring

what is intended), completeness (including all relevant variable items), and readability

(making it unlikely that surveyed subjects will misinterpret a particular question).

SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Employed multiple regression analysis, significance tests for the relationship on customer

satisfaction to the constructs of service quality was conducted (Table 5, 6, 7). The larger

R2 implies that the regression model provides a better fit to the data. By comparing the

value of R2 from Table 5, 6, 7, data from perceived service quality (Table 5) is the best in

building a regression model to predict customer satisfaction. The t tests on regression

coefficients (Table 5) provide the statistical evidence necessary to conclude that

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significant relationships are between the four constructs and customer satisfaction.

Table 5. Effects of perceived service quality to customer satisfaction

Dependent Variables

Independent Variables

Regression coefficient

R2

Empathy 0.197*** Ease of use 0.337*** Information quality 0.175***

Customer Satisfaction

Accessibility 0.107**

42.8%

Note: P<0.001(***); P<0.01(**); P<0.05(*)

Table 6. Effects of expected service quality to customer satisfaction Dependent Variables

Independent Variables

Regression coefficient

R2

Empathy 0.101* Ease of use 0.081 Information quality -0.010

Customer Satisfaction

Accessibility -0.067

1.8%

Note: P<0.001(***); P<0.01(**); P<0.05(*) Table 7. Effects of difference of expected and perceived service quality to customer

satisfaction Dependent Variables

Independent Variables

Regression coefficient

R2

Empathy 0.106* Ease of use 0.250*** Information quality 0.184***

Customer Satisfaction

Accessibility 0.126**

26.9%

Note: P<0.001(***); P<0.01(**); P<0.05(*)

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The mean scores of users perceived quality (Table 8) rank as following: information

quality (3.80), accessibility (3.78), ease of use (3.71), and empathy (3.25) on the 5-points,

“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” scale. This result indicates that the quality of

information play the most critical role in attracting visitors to a portal site. The context of

information quality includes that information is current and timely; information is

accurate and relevant; hyperlinks are valid; information is rich in detail. Accessibility and

ease of use also obtain high mean scores, which present the level of importance to each

attribute in evaluating website’s quality. Empathy shows a relatively low rating which

might reflect the sampled respondents are experienced net users who felt confident and

did not expect much attention for assistance.

The mean scores of users expected service quality rank differently from perceived

quality: accessibility (4.73), information quality (4.59), ease of use (4.43), and empathy

(4.14). In this research, accessibility includes two items: web pages load fast; and website

is available all the time. This result shows net users expect portal site to be 7x24, and

pages downloaded promptly.

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Table 8. Gap between perceptive and expected service level

Item Expected Perceived Diff. t value Sig. Empathy 4.14 3.25 -1.16

Q20 4.14 3.05 -1.10 -26.10 0.000 Q18 4.41 3.07 -1.34 -32.35 0.000 Q19 4.01 3.30 -0.71 -18.00 0.000 Q17 3.62 3.34 -0.28 -5.98 0.000 Q13 3.79 3.32 -0.47 -11.22 0.000 Q16 4.87 3.42 -1.45 -34.12 0.000

Ease of use 4.43 3.71 -0.72 Q7 4.60 4.03 -0.56 -17.54 0.000 Q5 4.54 3.79 -0.75 -20.22 0.000 Q15 4.39 3.79 -0.60 -16.38 0.000 Q6 3.97 3.37 -0.60 -14.71 0.000 Q14 4.63 3.57 -1.05 -25.41 0.000

Information quality 4.59 3.80 -0.79 Q2 4.61 3.93 -0.68 -18.84 0.000 Q3 4.64 3.67 -0.97 -25.48 0.000 Q1 4.61 3.94 -0.67 -18.47 0.000 Q4 4.51 3.65 -0.86 -23.42 0.000

Accessibility 4.73 3.78 -0.95 Q10 4.72 3.74 -0.98 -26.50 0.000 Q8 4.74 3.86 -0.88 -23.09 0.000

CONCLUSIONS AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

To deliver superior service quality, managers of companies with web presences must first

understand how customers perceive and evaluate online service. Based on the results

from this research, several recommendations can be advanced.

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First, more attention to the users’ needs. Most of net users (81.91%) from our

research prefer Yahoo! as their favorite portal site. This phenomenon is very common in

the cyberspace. Most of the net users will visit the most popular Web site only because

that geographic location is not a factor for visiting a Web site. Managers should be aware

of this while building a portal site for internal use. If the portal does not meet users’ needs,

users will not come at all.

Second, perceived service quality is the most effective indicator to model portal

customer satisfaction. Data from customer perceptions build a significantly better model

to predict customer satisfaction. This will greatly improve the efficiency of business

organizations and managers who actively seek ways to improve their portal service.

Third, The success of portals is closely related to four factors: information quality,

accessibility, ease of use, and empathy. Information quality is the most important factor

for customer satisfaction. The result indicates the importance, in general, of successful

portal site design to information rather than technology. Although getting technology in

order is an essential component of achieving successful portal site, there’s much more

needed to be done.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The authors thank Mr. Ming-Yuan Lin for data collections.

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APPENDIX

Item Attribute Q1 Hyperlinks are valid Q2 Information is current and timely Q3 Information is accurate and relevant Q4 Information is rich in detail Q5 Information category is simple and straight forward Q6 Web pages are visually appealing Q7 Navigation is easy Q8 Website is available all the time Q9 Website content is appropriate to customer requirements Q10 Web pages load fast Q11 Website has adequate search facilities Q12 Website address is easy to remember Q13 Web sites has many interactive service features Q14 Service are easy to locate Q15 Available services are clear to customers Q16 Privacy is protected Q17 Webpage can be personalized customized Q18 Questions are quickly responded Q19 Relevant FAQ help customers to solve problems Q20 Feedback is customized exactly to my question Q21 Customers are notified for new offers automatically

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