The Interactivity of Internet-Based Communications: Impacts on E-Business Consumer Decisions

Various Internet-based technologies have been used to offer online customer service. Common to these technologies is their ability to support interactive communication in exchanges with customers. This paper examines the impacts of communications interactivity on customer decision behaviors. We propose that interactivity can improve customer satisfaction and trust through perceptions of responsiveness and mutuality, which further increase customer intentions to buy. We are in the process of developing, operationalizing, and testing a model of interactivity impacts to examine these relationships. The research uses experiments to collect data and PLS to analyze the data.