Effect of Service Convenience on the Relationship Performance in B2B Markets: Mediating Effect of Relationship Factors

B2B 시장에서의 서비스 편의성이 관계성과에 미치는 영향 : 관계적 요인의 매개효과 분석

As relationship between buyer and seller has been brought closer and long-term relationship has been more important in B2B markets, the importance of service and service convenience increases as well as product. In homogeneous markets, where service offerings are similar and therefore not key competitive differentiator, providing greater convenience may enable a competitive advantage. Service convenience, as conceptualized by Berry et al. (2002), is defined as the consumers' time and effort perceptions related to buying or using a service. For this reason, B2B customers are interested in how fast the service is provided and how much save non-monetary cost like time or effort by the service convenience along with service quality. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of service convenience on relationship factors such as relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The purpose of this study is to find out whether service convenience can be a new antecedent of relationship quality and relationship performance. In addition, this study tries to examine how five-dimensional service convenience constructs (decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affect customers' relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The service convenience comprises five fundamental components - decision convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with service purchase or use decisions), access convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with initiating service delivery), transaction convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with finalizing the transaction), benefit convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with experiencing the core benefits of the offering) and post-benefit convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with reestablishing subsequent contact with the firm). Earlier studies of perceived service convenience in the industrial market are none. The conventional studies that have dealt with service convenience have usually been made in the consumer market, or they have dealt with convenience aspects in the service process. This service convenience measure for consumer market can be useful tool to estimate service quality in B2B market. The conceptualization developed by Berry et al. (2002) reflects a multistage, experiential consumption process in which evaluations of convenience vary at each stage. For this reason, the service convenience measure is good for B2B service environment which has complex processes and various types. Especially when categorizing B2B service as sequential stage of service delivery like Kumar and Kumar (2004), the Berry's service convenience measure which reflect sequential flow of service deliveries suitable to establish B2B service convenience. For this study, data were gathered from respondents who often buy business service and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study is 119. Composite reliability values and average variance extracted values were examined for each variable to have reliability. We determine whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity by CFA, and discriminant validity was assessed by examining the correlation matrix of the constructs. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the Smart PLS 2.0 and we calculated the PLS path values and followed with a bootstrap re-sampling method to test the hypotheses. Among the five dimensional service convenience constructs, four constructs (decision convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affected customers' positive relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. This result means that service convenience is important cue to improve relationship between buyer and seller. One of the five service convenience dimensions, access convenience, does not affect relationship quality and performance, which implies that the dimension of service convenience is not important factor of cumulative satisfaction. The Cumulative satisfaction can be distinguished from transaction-specific customer satisfaction, which is an immediate post-purchase evaluative judgment or an affective reaction to the most recent transactional experience with the firm. Because access convenience minimizes the physical effort associated with initiating an exchange, the effect on relationship satisfaction similar to cumulative satisfaction may be relatively low in terms of importance than transaction-specific customer satisfaction. Also, B2B firms focus on service quality, price, benefit, follow-up service and so on than convenience of time or place in service because it is relatively difficult to change existing transaction partners in B2B market compared to consumer market. In addition, this study using partial least squares methods reveals that customers' satisfaction and commitment toward relationship has mediating role between the service convenience and relationship performance. The result shows that management and investment to improve service convenience make customers' positive relationship satisfaction, and then the positive relationship satisfaction can enhance the relationship commitment and relationship performance. And to conclude, service convenience management is an important part of successful relationship performance management, and the service convenience is an important antecedent of relationship between buyer and seller such as the relationship commitment and relationship performance. Therefore, it has more important to improve relationship performance that service providers enhance service convenience although competitive service development or service quality improvement is important. Given the pressure to provide increased convenience, it is not surprising that organizations have made significant investments in enhancing the convenience aspect of their product and service offering.

B2B 시장에서 구매자와 판매자간의 관계는 매우 밀접하고 장기화되는 것이 특징이므로 결국 단순한 제품을 판매하는 것에 그치는 것이 아닌 지속적인 서비스에 대한 중요성이 날로 커지고 있다. 산업재 연구 전반에 걸쳐서도 서비스에 대한 중요성과 관심이 증대되면서 고객이 서비스를 사용하는데 있어서 그 서비스의 품질과 함께 최근 소비자들은 얼마나 빠르고 쉽게 서비스가 제공되어 투입되는 노력을 최소화시킬 수 있는가를 매우 중요하게 생각하기 때문에 편의성이 중요한 요인으로 고려되어지고 있다. 이에 따라, 본 연구에서는 산업재 시장에서 관계만족과 관계성과를 형성하는데 중요하게 생각할 수 있는 새로운 요인이 어떤 것인가 라는 의문점에서 출발하여, 서비스 편의성과 관계성과 사이의 구조적 관계를 조사하고자 하였다. 이 연구의 가장 큰 학문적 기여점은 산업재 연구에서 주류를 이루고 있는 관계품질과 관계성과의 새로운 선행요인을 검증한 것이다. 또한 소비재 시장에서 주로 연구되었던 서비스 편의성 척도를 산업재 시장에 적용하여 그 활용도를 실험해 보았다는 데 의의가 있다. 본 연구는 서비스 편의성의 구성요소인 서비스 편의성을 결정편의성, 접근편의성, 거래편의 성, 편익편의성, 사후편익편의성 다섯가지 차원으로 구분하고 관계적 요인인 관계만족에 미치는 영향과 이러한 관계만족이 관계몰입과 관계성과에 어떠한 영향을 미치는가를 분석하여 서비스 편의성의 관리와 투자에 대한 마케팅 측면의 중요성을 제시하고 있다. 실증분석을 위해 산업재 서비스를 이용하고 있는 기업의 직원들을 대상으로 설문을 통해 데이터를 수집하였으며 서비스 편의성 ${\rightarrow}$ 관계만족 ${\rightarrow}$ 관계몰입 $\{rightarrow}$ 관계성과에 대한 인과적 구성모텔에 대해 구조방정식 모델분석으로 검증하였다. 구성모텔에 대한 분석결과 서비스 편의성을 구성하는 요소 중 접근편의성을 제외한 나머지 결정편의성, 거래편의성, 편익편의성, 사후편익편의성은 모두 관계적 요인들에 긍정적인 영향을 미쳤으며, 그 중 편익편의성이 관계적 요인에 가장 큰 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 추가적으로 매개효과검증을 실시하여, 서비스 편의성과 관계성과의 관계를 살펴보는데 있어서, 서비스 편의성이 관계만족과 관계몰입을 통해서 관계성과에 긍정적인 영향을 주는 구조적 인 관계를 가지고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 이는 높은 서비스 편의성에 대한 관리와 투자가 구매자로 하여금 관계에 만족하게 만들고 이렇게 형성된 관계만족은 관계에 몰입하게 하여 결과적으로는 관계성과를 가져올 수 있음을 시사한다.