TY - GEN
T1 - Walking customers from business to friend relationships
T2 - 39th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2018
AU - Li, Jing
AU - Xu, Xin
AU - Li, Qiang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© International Conference on Information Systems 2018, ICIS 2018.All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/12
Y1 - 2018/12
N2 - Given the increasing availability and importance of live chats in e-commerce, we examine when a salesperson should send a friend request to customers, moving it from a business to a friend relationship. We leverage the logistic regression to estimate the effectiveness of a salesperson's friend request on relationship and economic outcomes by using a large-scale archival data from an Asian luxury e-commerce firm. We find that (1) the friend request made in the middle or end of a conversation is more likely to be accepted than the one made in the beginning; (2) the more positive words used by salesperson, the less likely for customers to accept the friend request in the end than the one in the beginning, in line with the old saying-i.e., strike the iron while it is hot; and (3) the more standard answers used by salesperson to respond to customers' inquiries, the less likely for customers to accept the friend request in the middle or in the end than the one in the beginning, suggesting that superficial listening can't exchange for friendship. This study extends the current literature on the salesperson-customer relationship by investigating when the use of a friend request can influence customers' acceptance, satisfaction, and purchase decisions. We provide insights for retailers about how they can take advantage of friend request in the live chat context to increase customer satisfaction and sales volume.
AB - Given the increasing availability and importance of live chats in e-commerce, we examine when a salesperson should send a friend request to customers, moving it from a business to a friend relationship. We leverage the logistic regression to estimate the effectiveness of a salesperson's friend request on relationship and economic outcomes by using a large-scale archival data from an Asian luxury e-commerce firm. We find that (1) the friend request made in the middle or end of a conversation is more likely to be accepted than the one made in the beginning; (2) the more positive words used by salesperson, the less likely for customers to accept the friend request in the end than the one in the beginning, in line with the old saying-i.e., strike the iron while it is hot; and (3) the more standard answers used by salesperson to respond to customers' inquiries, the less likely for customers to accept the friend request in the middle or in the end than the one in the beginning, suggesting that superficial listening can't exchange for friendship. This study extends the current literature on the salesperson-customer relationship by investigating when the use of a friend request can influence customers' acceptance, satisfaction, and purchase decisions. We provide insights for retailers about how they can take advantage of friend request in the live chat context to increase customer satisfaction and sales volume.
KW - Online Friendship Formation
KW - Salesperson Listening
KW - Social Media
KW - Timing of Making Friend Request
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062483483&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference article published in proceeding or book
AN - SCOPUS:85062483483
T3 - International Conference on Information Systems 2018, ICIS 2018
BT - International Conference on Information Systems 2018, ICIS 2018
PB - Association for Information Systems
Y2 - 13 December 2018 through 16 December 2018
ER -