Resolving complaints online: development and validation of customers’ perceived webcare scale

In the quest for resolving customer complaints and attracting customers for online transactions, service providers have developed online response mechanisms. This mechanism generically termed as ‘webcare’. Despite widespread adoption of webcare by marketers, there is minimal understanding of its conceptualisation and measurement in the customer-centric perspective. One of the primary reasons for this is the lack of a psychometric scale that measures webcare efforts as perceived by customers. Thus, we formally define and develop a psychometric instrument that measures ‘webcare’ efforts of the marketers. Accordingly, we conceptualised and validated a three dimensional, 14-item psychometric tool measuring Consumers’ Perceived Webcare (CPW). From an academic perspective, the scale can contribute towards advancement in marketing and online service recovery literature. From a practitioner’s perspective, the study will help managers to efficiently manage the process of designing and executing online response strategies while trying to resolve customer complaints and attract customers online.