The Effects of Customer Service on the Development of E-Commerce at Kenya Commercial Bank Eldoret Branch

Abstract

Unprecedented growth of e-commerce is now pushing traditional business to transform into e-commerce to speed up business transaction, retain the loyalty of customers and reduce customers’ time and effort in shopping. However to harness the real impact and benefits of e-commerce the manager of any organization must institute practical measures and implement good customer service. The concept of customer service on electronic commerce is a relatively new challenging area to researchers and managers. Hence this research sought to examine customer service and its effects on the development of electronic commerce at Kenya Commercial Bank Eldoret Branch.  Descriptive research design was employed. The target population was 15,030 customers who were account holders of Kenya Commercial Bank Eldoret Branch. A sample of 374 was selected using systematic sampling. The research instrument used was a 5 point likert scale questionnaire. Data was analyzed statististically. From the study findings, customer service (r = 0.169) had a positive relationship with development of electronic commerce. Pearson correlation value (r) were significant at 0.01 level of significance. Customer service had an effect on the development of electronic commerce with (?₁= 0.047, P value = 0.006<0.05) being positive related to the development of e-commerce. Thus the study concludes that customer service is important in ensuring an enabling environment for the development of electronic commerce. The study sought to collect information from the customer which was carried over a long period of time as it involved approaching the customers at the bank at different period of time and this resulted to repetition as some customers would be able to fill the questionnaire twice. Hence this was the limitation. The study recommended that there is need to carry out specific investigation into the various aspects building customer service standards.

Key words: Electronic Commerce, Customer Service, Development, Commercial Bank,  Customer