Track: Internet and the Digital Economy
Minitrack: Delivering Online Service - The Role of ICT

Customer service quality is considered a key component of customer satisfaction, customer retention and ultimately, business success. Currently the nature of service delivery is undergoing extensive change. Increasingly customers are interfacing directly with ICT systems and applications, or dealing with the organisation via ICT-mediated channels rather than face-to-face. This has created new challenges for businesses. Many businesses are now implementing a range of customer-centric e-CRM systems. By themselves, these initiatives are not enough to satisfy and retain customers. These initiatives need to be complemented by the delivery of quality online services.

In this mini-track we are interested in theoretical and empirical papers, including case studies, aimed at elucidating the determinants of online service quality, and papers that report on technologies, systems, and procedures businesses employ to meet online service delivery requirements.

Topics and research areas include, but are not limited to:
* The changing nature of customer service quality in an ICT-mediated environment
* Service quality in web portals
* Online service quality in the multi-channel organization
* Self-service technologies
* User perceptions of the self-service experience, including perceptions of trust and risk and self-service role
* Metrics and instruments for the measurement of online service quality
* The impact of contextual factors and site and user purpose on perceptions of online service quality
* Developing customer loyalty and building a service brand in online environments
* Internal information management for online service quality
* Functional integration, process management, and online service quality

Co-chairs:
Mary Tate (Primary Contact)
School of Information Management
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600 Wellington, New Zealand
Phone: +64-4-463-5265
Fax: +64-4-463-5446
Email: Mary.Tate@vuw.ac.nz

Beverley Hope
College of Information Technology
United Arab Emirates University
P.O.Box 17555 Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
Phone: +971 3 713-3656
Fax: +971 3 762-6309
Email: bhope@uaeu.ac.ae