...Building Customer Trust Building and maintaining customer trust is a very important aspect of having an e-commerce site. If customers cannot trust the site, they will be less likely to make a purchase from the site. Web 2.0 that allows users to share information with each other has become a very important aspect of building customer trust, and we make use of it. We have created a fictional storefront for The Fake Flower Shop, which uses some techniques that build customer trust. These techniques will hopefully make the user feel like they have nothing to worry about when ordering from us. The first technique that we used to build customer trust is the use of a contact section of the website. This will make the customer feel more comfortable ordering from us (Delk, 2013). The customers will feel much more comfortable if they have a way of getting in contact with the company. Without a means of contact, the customer might worry that they will be left out to dry if there is an issue with their order, by having a visible means of contact this helps to eliminate this worry. Another technique that we used to help build customer trust is the use of social media. On the side of our page we offer links to Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin (and if this was a real company it would link to a real page). By using these social media sites, we can work over time to gain the customer's trust (Kennedy, 2013). This also gives the customers a place to communicate with each other to share their...
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...Initial Trust in C2C E-Commerce and Strategies of Building Initial Trust in China Huamei Sun Factors Affecting Initial Trust in C2C E-Commerce and Strategies of Building Initial Trust in China Huamei Sun School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China E-mail:shm9166@sina.com Abstract The study of initial trust is very important to the development of e-commerce. On the basis of current status of China’s C2C e-commerce, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the factors affecting the consumers’ initial trust. At last, the paper provides some valuable marketing strategies as to how to build the initial trust so as to facilitate the success of online transactions. The research conducted by this paper will help enterprise enhance their competitive advantage and contribute to the development of e-commerce. Keywords: Initial Trust, C2C E-Commerce, Online Shopping 1. Introduction The study of the trust in the e-commerce environment has long been mostly focusing on the B2C Model, yet with the development of the information technology, the online C2C business has accounted for more than 75% of the online shopping turnover, which has influenced people’s work environment greatly and become an important part in the daily life of consumers in the information society. Under the C2C e-commerce environment characterized by the person-to-person transactions, it’s difficult for the buyer and seller to build a high degree of trust. Online...
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...Internet has become more popular worldwide. According to Zhou, Lu and Wang, (2009), over 298 million people use the Internet with 24.8 percent of these people making online purchases (p. 327). Website design quality and service quality are both important, but how do these affect consumer behavior? Website design definitely affects the first purchase of an item as customers as they eagerly decide to buy or decide not to buy, but what factors determine whether customers continue to buy? Website design quality is important because attracts customers to keep coming back to the website whether it is a simple thank you to keeping track of customer orders that have become complicated. Website design quality attracts customers to the website while service quality makes a difference by taking care of the service needs of the customer. Zhou, Lu, and Wang (2009) hypothesis that “compared with website design quality, service quality has a stronger effect on consumers’ satisfaction” (p. 329). The analysis will support the hypothesis that service quality is important in consumer behavior in repurchasing different products because trust is a key concept. Web design quality and service quality are both important to websites. The article, “The Relative Importance of Website Design Quality and Service Quality in...
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...Marketing to Customers Marixela Luis MBA: 505 Dr. Cusaac December 4, 2013 Jones International University a. The value you place on marketing As we all know that marketing plays an important role in businesses in order to become successful. Marketing provides value in many forms but gaining recognition is the number one tool to use in order to have a successful marketing plan and strategy. In same time helps businesses and brand to become well-recognized and trusted therefore by developing a good marketing plan can help businesses increase recognition and sales. Building trust is an excellent idea as well as having good marketing techniques in place which helps in starting to develop good recognition. Of course every business wants recognition that will help develop trust because having trust will certainly inspire people to put their faith in your product or services and select you over your competitors. Therefore, in order to build trust you must come up with good marketing techniques that will differentiate your business from your competitors. Gain new customers is another excellent marketing technique that not only helps in building recognition and trust, but also helps more with gaining customers and clients. For example, marketing a business services or products will certainly help in gaining brand recognition, which in time will lead to more people wanting your products and services. In same time if you are unsure that you are getting new customers simply place...
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...Customer Advocacy: A New Era in Marketing? Glen L. Urban have been active as a marketing researcher since 1964, or much of what Wilkie and Moore (2003) call Eras III and IV of scholarly research. The field of management science in marketing has grown in both scope and impact during this time. My work has been centered on new product development, with models from assessor to information acceleration. Most recently, I have been working on issues of trust, advice for consumers, and the discovery of new product opportunities by “listening in” to the online dialogue between a trusted advisor and a customer (Urban and Hauser 2004). Because I have done this recent work on the Internet, I sensed a sea change in the underlying consumer behavior. Something had shifted, and it took me a while to discover that customers had gained new power in buying decisions. Since 1950, marketing has been based on a push/ pull model in which the manufacturer designs a product to fill a need and then convinces the consumer to buy with aggressive advertising, promotion, and distribution tactics. The increase in customer power changes the equation, and I believe that this shift in the power relationship will define the dividing line between Eras IV and V of marketing. I call this new era “customer advocacy” because it is based on the firm representing the customers’ interest by providing them complete and unbiased information, advice on which product is best for them (including fair comparisons with competitors)...
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...June 28, 2012 The Corporation and Modern Society: Crises of Capitalism It’s a Wonderful Life – Trust, Respect and Personal Responsibility in Business We tend to think of the past with nostalgia. The stories of our grandparents about simpler times when there was trust and respect, when families lived and stayed together, doors could be left unlocked, shopkeepers and businesses knew their customers. Some grandparents lived through the early 20th century untouched by the Great Depression. However, others struggled against forces that they did not understand. The banks and businesses that they had trusted had “failed” and they were suddenly without jobs or homes. Most Americans did not have any idea what had happened to the banks or how a bank could “fail”. With only newspapers and limited radio to rely on for information, they felt abandoned by the institutions they had trusted. The film It’s a Wonderful Life addresses the impact that a loss of trust has on a community and equally important, the failure of big business to respect those they serve. Frank Capra recognized that his film would be more than “good versus evil” in the form of George Bailey versus Mr. Potter. The citizens of Bedford Falls represented every small town in America where the lives of working class people centered on cooperation, sharing equity, fairness, and justice. They had a perception of trust and respect built on these values in which business and friendship went hand in hand. Capra...
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...2.1Trust vs. customer trust 5 2.2 Customer trust vs. online trust 8 2.2.1 Define customer trust in online shopping 8 2.2.2 The importance of customer trust in online shopping 9 2.2.3 Findings from past studies 9 2.3 E-business Vs E-drugstore 12 2.3.1 A glance of pharmaceutical industry & drugstore sector 14 2.4 Website factors that might affect the perceptions of customers’ online trust 18 2.4.1 Website factors VS consumer factors 18 2.4.2 Discussion of website factors 19 3. Methodology, data, and model 36 3.1 Methodology and data collection 36 3.2 Model & analysis 37 3.2.1 Variance analysis 37 3.2.2 Factor analysis 40 4. Results and discussion 43 4.1 Results for research questions 43 4.2 Results from factor analysis 47 5. Managerial implications 49 6. Limitation and further research 54 7. Conclusion 56 Appendix A: Customer trust survey 57 Appendix B: Factor analysis of attributes of websites factors (Heavy Loadings) 58 Appendix C: Frequency table 59 References 60 1. Introduction 1.1 Research motivation and objectives It is commonly accepted that e-business is beneficial to the further growth and success of businesses, government, and not-for-profit organizations (Sultan et al, 2002). Specifically, the advent of the Internet has brought new business opportunities to the retail industry. However, no matter how wonderful e-business is, many small businesses still cannot participate in the online market due to a lack of customer trust. While previous...
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...Abstract Purpose During the last few decades competition in consumer markets has increase dramatically and fragmented the markets. Consequently, the discipline of marketing has changed radically from transactional marketing into relational marketing. Today, the entertainment industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries, where competition intensifies year by year and hence the focus on building relationships with customers has become a central element for survival. The thesis has its focus on one of the most successful companies in this industry, Blizzard Entertainment®. More specifically it will explore how they utilise their online brand community „Battle.net®‟ in order to build relationships with its customers. Based on a theoretical discussion of relationship marketing and online brand communities, together with an investigation of Blizzard Entertainment‟s online brand community „Battle.net‟, this thesis will explore: How and to what degree does Blizzard Entertainment’s online brand community ‘Battle.net’ contribute to build successful relationships with its customers in a fragmented market? In order to answer the problem statement the thesis is divided into three parts; a contextual description, a theoretical discussion, and a case study of Blizzard‟s online brand community Battle.net. The contextual description and the theoretical discussion create a fundament for the case study. Method The thesis takes a hermeneutical/humanistic view point to approach...
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...Customer Service Assignment #2 Trust is a very important criterion for a customer service relationship in this day and age because when a customer feels and knows that they can trust you they are guaranteed to come back and give you their business. With trust and loyalty you can make it far in a company and very far in life and in the business world. When customers come into your place of business to shop or maybe to get a service done they are putting their trust in you. When a customer ask you a question whether it is about clothing, shoes, or a skin care products they are trusting that you are knowledgeable enough to provide answers that is honest and reliable. With building trust and loyalty with each and every customer this ensures return businesses and new customers. Most businesses can credit their success to word of mouth. I personally will recommend a store that I shop at or a restaurant I eat at if services were good. Trust is something that needs to be everywhere not just in the work place, it’s also something people need to build and earn. In a relationship with your partner you need trust cause without trust the relationship will not last and it will die. If you are loyal to people around you they will trust you until you do something that shows them you are not loyal and they cannot trust you anymore. Once trust is broken with your customers you will be sure that you will lose business and that customer and any others that were recommended by your client. A...
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...employees that this was the standard that they had to hold themselves to. The company revealed the new name, logo and tagline “Innovating the HP Way”. Seven months later, on November 1, 1999, Agilent began operating as a separate stand-alone company. On November 18, 1999, Agilent launched its initial public offering, which at $2.1 billion, was Silicon Valley‟s largest IPO to date. From a small garage in Palo Alto, California, to employees around the world serving customers in 120 countries, Agilent has a long history of innovation and leadership in the communications, electronics, semiconductor, test and measurement, life sciences and chemical analysis industries. BIRTH OF AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES Agilent's foundation was laid by two entrepreneurs Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in the form of Hewlett-Packard, a company started by them to provide test and measurement equipment. HP provides products, technologies, software solutions and services to consumers, small and medium sized businesses and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors. Agilent Technologies was born as a spin-off of Hewlett-Packard Company. It announced a plan to create a separate company, made up of HP‟s businesses in Test and Measurement, Semiconductor Products, Healthcare Solutions, Chemical Analysis and the related portions of HP Laboratories. REASONS FOR SPIN-OFF In March 1999, Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced that it...
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...Facing Exchange Relationship with Customers Willard Williamson, Sr Managerial Marketing – BUS 620 Dr. Larry Flegle February 7, 2011 Abstract: In this paper I will be discussing the issues that force companies that market products that may not sell easily. Will discuss the impact exchange relationship will have on a customer who doesn’t want to be a customer. Will also discuss how companies effectively approach this relationship. Marketing is a social process involving the activities necessary to enable individuals and organizations to obtain what they need and want through exchange with others and to develop ongoing exchange relationships (Mullins & Walker, 2010). A company that is attempting to sell a product that is not an easy sell must research through surveys and other means to learn how their customers feel about the product, if the customer has any real interest to buy or have the product in their home or to use it. The company must have a good understanding of their customers by listening to their customers while they gather information, analyze, and understand the customer’s problems and tailor their offerings to the customer’s needs (Abed & Haghighi, 2009). A well established customer oriented relationship can help sales people satisfy buyers needs on a long term venture. The sellers must spend considerable time and be dedicated to understanding and then satisfying the customer through buyer – seller relationships. The success for most companies...
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...attention on attracting customers rather than retaining them. That's a mistake. The unique economics of e-business make customer loyalty more important than ever. by Frederick F. Reichheld and Phil Schefter L OYALTY MAY NOT BE THE FIRST * idea that pops into your head when you think ahout electronic commerce. After all, what relevance could such a quaint, oldfashioned notion hold for a world in which customers defect at the click of a mouse and impersonal shopping hots scour databases for ever hetter deals? What good is a small-town virtue amid the faceless anonymity of the Internet's HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 2000 glohal marketplace? Loyalty must he on a fast track toward extinction, right? Not at all. Chief executives at the cutting edge of e-commerce-from Dell Computer's Michael Dell to eBay's Meg Whitman, from Vanguard's Jack Brennan to Grainger's Richard Keyser-care deeply about customer retention and consider it vital to the success of their on-line operations. They know that loyalty 105 E-Loyalty: Your Secret Weapon on the Web is an economic necessity: acquiring customers on the Internet is enormously expensive, and unless those customers stick around and make lots of repeat purchases over the years, profits will remain elusive. They also know it's a competitive necessity: in every industry, some company will figure out how to harness the potential of the Weh to create exceptional value for customers, and that company ...
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...responsibilities seems insensitive. Their insensitivity has really shown when they chose to throw away expired food instead of having it donated to a local food bank. They were more concerned with reducing internal theft than helping feed the less fortunate. It took years of requests from their customers to get more organic products stocked in their stores. The customer may perceive that their concerns are not worth the company’s time. They also closed two stores because they were no long being profitable. What about all the customers/families that have been shopping at these two stores for the last X amount of years? Where do they go now? By closing the two stores and refusing to donate food to the local food bank, we can conclude that Company Q is not being socially responsible. In fact they are doing the complete opposite. They chose to close the two stores rather than exploring different options to improve store performance, which in turn could potentially improve community relationships, customer loyalty, and profits. The company destroys any chance of their being employee commitment and trust by implying that employees might steal if they handle donations. Generosity is non-existent, customer concerns are not of high importance, and the suspicion that employees would steal signifies they lack a strong ethical culture. Throwing away the food...
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...Running head: CMR CMR Eva Stefferud Herzing University In order for this retailer to support its employees in their to build and sustain customer relations, it does need to start from top level down. The most important way in doing so is establishing communication with its employees. When communications is stablished and employees are confident in with the information that is provided to them, trust is then formed. According to Baslin & Reddin, (2004) “Trust is a powerful force that builds loyalty, increases credibility and supports effective communications. It gives you the benefit of the doubt in situations where you want to be heard, understood and believed. A workforce that trusts its leaders and really understands what is happening within the company will be more satisfied, more productive and better able to contribute ideas for improvement. Measuring progress, getting feedback after making the effort, you also want to know whether what you have done is working. Just as there is no end to improving quality, there is no end to building trust. This makes it necessary to combine ongoing, sporadic, short-term measurement activities with regular, long-term measurement. Once you gain the employees trust and buy in, the organization can move forward in building strong relationship with their customers. I believe that internal competitive work methodology can in fact insure the success of a CRM program. I believe that a company that has a strong leadership that...
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...What is Culture? Culture in general is concerned with beliefs and values on the basis of which people interpret experiences and behave, individually and in groups. Broadly and simply put, "culture" refers to a group or community with which you share common experiences that shape the way you understand the world. The same person, thus, can belong to several different cultures depending on his or her birthplace; nationality; ethnicity; family status; gender; age; language; education; physical condition; sexual orientation; religion; profession; place of work and its corporate culture. Culture is the "lens" through which you view the world. It is central to what you see, how you make sense of what you see, and how you express yourself. Four Cultural Dimensions Cultures – both national and organizational – differ along many dimensions. Four of the most important are: Directness (get to the point versus imply the messages) Hierarchy (follow orders versus engage in debate) Consensus (dissent is accepted versus unanimity is needed) Individualism (individual winners versus team effectiveness)7 Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges Culture is often at the root of communication challenges. Exploring historical experiences and the ways in which various cultural groups have related to each other is key to opening channels for cross-cultural communication. Becoming more aware of cultural differences, as well as exploring cultural similarities, can...
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