Measurement scales for technology-generated customer contact

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop measurement scales for customer contact in a technology-generated context.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors adapted the scales of Froehle and Roth (2004), by following a systematic scale adaptation and development process. The adapted scales were tested for psychometric properties and refined by building measurement models using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Findings

The authors found it necessary to revise Froehle and Roth’s (2004) original items in most of the scales. After testing, the “attitude towards the episode” scale was dropped and remaining nine scales were retained.

Research limitations/implications

The scales will be useful to future researchers on online shopping to advance their research. The scales can be tested and validated with data from multiple empirical contexts and adapted to those contexts as necessary. Future studies must examine path relationships between belief, attitude, and intention constructs.

Practical implications

The adapted scales can be useful to practitioners in the domain of online shopping to measure the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions of their customers. Potential beneficiaries include service providers, service designers, industry associations as well as regulators in the government.

Originality/value

The overarching contribution of this paper lies in developing scales pertaining to the online shopping context of technology-generated customer contact. The paper has simultaneously addressed two relatively less attended areas of research on service operations – the role of technology in customer contact and measurement of customer contact.

Citation

Rudran, R. and Kumar J., A. (2017), "Measurement scales for technology-generated customer contact", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 37 No. 5, pp. 534-556. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-02-2016-0079