Customer responses to waits for online banking service delivery

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the effect of situational factors, related to transactions and waiting, on customers' cognitive and affective responses to service delivery time, including their service evaluations.

Design/methodology/approach

A web‐based survey included customers of an online credit company.

Findings

The authors' results demonstrate that disconfirmation influences cognitive but not affective responses. Both transaction importance and opportunity waiting cost influence wait acceptability, and transaction importance moderates the relationship between disconfirmation and wait acceptability. Delivery time worry and transaction worry increase negative affective responses; affective and cognitive responses then determine service evaluation. Opportunity waiting costs increase the positive effect of wait acceptability on service evaluation.

Research limitations/implications

The main limitations pertain to the small sample size and the restriction of the survey to customers of only one financial company.

Practical implications

The derived guidelines suggest how banks can improve service evaluations by modifying consumer time expectations, as well as reducing opportunity waiting cost, delivery time worry, and transaction worry.

Originality/value

The conceptualization of service delivery time refers to waiting outside the company's premises, as opposed to in‐line waiting on company premises. This study considers the influence of situational factors, such as transaction importance, transaction worry, waiting cost, and delivery time worry, on customers' reactions to service delivery time in the context of online banking services.

Citation

Demoulin, N.T.M. and Djelassi, S. (2013), "Customer responses to waits for online banking service delivery", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 41 No. 6, pp. 442-460. https://doi.org/10.1108/09590551311330825