Investigating the adoption of electronic customer service by Australian businesses

This study investigates electronic customer service, e-service, by Australian organisations, replicating and building on Heuchan et al.'s study of relationships among organisational characteristics and e-service. Compared to one year earlier, the study found more organisations with Web sites, shorter response times to customer e-mails and higher response quality to customer e-mails. Response rate and response quality, however, was virtually the same - poor. Australian organisations have e-service tools such as Web sites and e-mail, yet they face an assimilation gap delivering e-service. Organisational diffusion of innovations provides a theoretical base for these results and future research. The paper gives manager insights into existing e-service and ways to improve e-service in their organisation.