[Changing customer perception with the growing use of social media: an explorative approach]

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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Analysis

RESULTS

First, I present the results of the empirical tests of the research questions. Next, I further explore the underlying drivers affecting channel preference across the buying stages.

Changes in Channel Usage Intentions and Preference across the Three Purchasing Stages

My research questions imply that changes in channel usage intentions and preference across the buying stages of a complex service are affected by a consumer's channel experience. Figure 1 provides the first insight into channel preference across stages, but it does not reflect the effect of channel experience. It shows that, although the online channel seems to be more congruent with consumer preference in the pre-purchase stage relative to the other stages, the offline channel is preferred in all stages of the buying process of a mortgage. This is an interesting finding in itself because despite all the advances in technology and the Internet, people involved with a complex service product still tend to prefer the offline channel (that is, communicating with a financial adviser face-to-face) over the online channel in all the three stages of the buying process.

To test my research questions, I estimated a MANOVA full factorial model on consumer usage intention of the two marketing channels, the three buying stages and consumer channel experience. The results are presented in Table 3. Table 3 reports the p-values or significance levels. The results indicate that buying stage is significant for both marketing channels (online channel p _ .000; offline channel p _ .019), which implies that channel usage intention significantly differs across the three stages of the purchase process. Although experience with the Internet significantly affects online channel usage intentions (p _ .000) and experience with offline channel significantly affects offline channel usage intentions (p _ .040), experience with the Internet significantly affects the online channel usage intention across the three buying stages (p _ .000), but does not have a cross effect on the consumer's offline channel usage intentions (p _ .698). As shown in Figure 2a, I find that consumers with Internet experience (marked “Hi exp” in the figure) demonstrate a significant higher usage intention for the online channel in both the pre-purchase and postpurchase stages (marked “Pre-P” and “Post-P”) than do the consumers without Internet experience (marked “Lo exp”). In the purchase stage (marked “Purchase”), hoIver, the difference is not significant.

Comparing Figures 2a and 2c, I see that in the purchase stage, the offline channel is the dominant preference of consumers regardless of their experience with the Internet, ...