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The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a multidimensional hierarchical scale for measuring “e-service quality variation.”

Based on the psychometric scale-development approach, qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to develop the e-SERVAR scale. A multidimensional hierarchical factor structure of e-SERVAR is proposed, along with a set of preliminary items derived from literature and the qualitative study. Furthermore, the Yahoo website in Taiwan was chosen to be the target e-service website for data collection to develop the e-SERVAR scale. A series of statistical methods (i.e. item-to-total correlations, exploratory factor analyses, CFAs and structural equation modeling) were adopted to verify construct reliability and validity as well as nomological validity of the scale.

A 41-item e-SERVAR scale based on the structure of a hierarchical factor model was developed that contains three primary dimensions (i.e. information, system and fulfillment) and nine subdimensions (information accuracy, information quantity, information timeliness, information usefulness, system reliability, system security, merchandise quality, merchandise delivery timeliness and merchandise security).

The results of this study help managers identify sources of quality variability and design efficacious strategies to reduce such variability in order to improve the overall e-service quality.

Prior research of e-service quality has paid less attention to the role of e-service quality variability. Discussion of e-service quality variability was mainly conceptual in nature. This research presents the e-SERVAR scale as a measurement tool that provides a new avenue for researchers to study how to improve e-service quality by measuring service variability.

The Bed and Breakfast (B&B) enterprises generally lack sufficient human resources and time to conduct research on important social media marketing factors for visitors’ satisfaction and visitors’ intentions. Therefore, this study aims to provide crucial social media marketing and factors and service quality elements for improving customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in B&B sectors. This study also provides some recommendations for attracting more visitors and increasing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty through social media.

First, social media marketing factors and service quality elements were identified through the systematic literature review. Then these identified factors and elements were used to design a survey questionnaire for collecting data. The research data included responses of 64 B&B enterprises and 625 customers. The collected data was analyzed by feature selection approaches including Decision Tree algorithm and Information Gain to identify the key factors for improving customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

The findings of this study determined that featured choice is an important social media marketing factor, and assurance is the common service quality element for both B&B enterprises and their customers in terms of satisfaction and loyalty.

This study adds a value to the growing literature on customer satisfaction and loyalty in B&B sectors by exploring key social media marketing factors and service quality elements. The study reveals several implications for theories and practices. The findings hopefully help B&B enterprises better social media marketing with less workforce and budget.