The analysis of serbian customers satisfaction with e-services quality dimensions of lodging e-intermediaries

With the constantly rising share of online accommodation
bookings, finding out how customers perceive the website
e-service quality (e-SQ) is becoming increasingly important
in order to build strong satisfaction and create loyal customers.
The main goal of the study was to analyze how Serbian
customers perceive the quality of service provided by lodging
e-Intermediaries. The model used had six dimensions
of e-SQ (System availability/Reliability, Structure/Usability,
Information Quality, Efficiency, Safety/Privacy, and Personalization)
with a total number of 22 items for e-SQ and
3 additional for customer satisfaction. Correlation matrix
and multiple regression analysis were used to determine
the impact of each of 6 dimensions of e-service quality on
satisfaction of e-intermediary customers. As a convenience
sampling approach was used, the sample comprised mostly
tourism and hospitality professionals, university staff and
students. The questionnaires were distributed via e-mails,
social media and partially directly in printed form during
the research period of 3 months (July-September, 2015). In
total, 148 respondents participated in the research. The data
gathered on the habits and e-intermediary use of Serbian
customers show that majority of customers book accommodation
via e-intermediaries up to 10 times a year, mostly for
stays of up to 6 nights. Most customers begin the process of
booking accommodation by going directly to the homepage
of the preferred e-intermediaries or use Google search. The
most commonly used e-intermediary is Booking.com. During
the selection process, the majority of Serbian customers
will compare multiple properties, usually even 15 and more,
and will mostly book double rooms in hotels. Customer
satisfaction in this study was conceptually set very narrow
within the framework of the six e-SQ dimensions. The study
has shown that only three out of six dimensions have impact
on customer satisfaction, comprising 63.9% of total customer
satisfaction: reliability, information quality, and personalization.
The study refers to the perception of satisfaction with
e-service offered by lodging e-intermediaries exclusively,
and therefore has limited use when it comes to other types
of websites and e-intermediaries in different industries.
The e-SQ dimension “information quality” has shown the
largest effect on customer satisfaction in this study. There
is a possibility that in different circumstances and/or environment
some other dimensions may show a much greater
importance. This research has shown that the e-SQ dimensions
have an essential role in achieving the customer satisfaction.
The results also show that there is a possibility for
further improvement of lodging e-intermediary services as
the customers are not fully satisfied with the most significant
e-SQ dimensions. Also, the results and differences in the
results of this and other studies show that it is necessary to
further improve the personalization of websites and adapt
them to customers from different regions and countries.
Partial differences in the results of this study compared to
other studies indicate that, due to the changing preferences
of customers and their perception of the quality, there is a
necessity to conduct the analysis of the perception of the
e-SQ on a regular basis, in order to be up-to-date with the
ever changing needs and expectations of customers. Also,
differences in the e-SQ dimensions that have effects on
customer satisfaction indicate that it is necessary to set up
a broader research framework involving a greater number
of e-SQ dimensions for further research.