Doctoral thesis: Pia Hellman: Communication in e-services should be based on motivating the consumers

The information content of e-service communication at the various stages of e-service adoption, should be optimised by testing and measuring the effect of such communication, argues Pia Hellman in her doctoral thesis "The Effect of Communicating E-service Benefits on Consumer E-service Adoption".

Hellman has studied how communicating the benefits of e-services to customers can be used to motivate them to adopt the services.

The results indicate that the adoption of e-services can be improved by testing the effect on adoption rates of those e-service benefits that motivate the consumer most at the various stages of the service adoption process.

Lack of customer communication about an e-service can lead to a poor e-service usage rate. Customers will not be interested in adopting an e-service if they do not know what to do and what the benefits may be. Having a good user interface and good usability does not automatically mean that a person is motivated to use an e-service. Lack of e-service communication can also lead to a decline in customer satisfaction: the customer finds the e-service difficult to understand and is not convinced by the benefits it can provide.

These results can be used for the planning and the development of e-service communication, user interface and adoption.

Hellman's dissertation is based on an experiment, using over 20 000 Finnish customers of a telecommunication company.

M.Sc. (Econ.) Pia Hellman defends her doctoral thesis in marketing: "The Effect of Communicating E-service Benefits on Consumer E-service Adoption" on 17 June 2014.

Time: 17 June 2014, at 12
Place: Hanken Svenska handelshögskolan, Helsinki
Opponent: Professor Chanaka Jayawadena, University of Hull, England

Custos: Professor Veronica Liljander, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki

For more information, please contact: 

Pia Hellman 

+358 50 5823400
pia.hellman@hanken.fi

A copy of the thesis can be downloaded here: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/135162