The development of service quality dimensions for internet service providers: Retaining customers of different usage patterns

• It is the first of its kind which attempts to investigate the dimensions of an ISP’s service quality.
• It examines the relationships between an ISP’s service quality and customers’ perceptions of value, trust, and commitment.
• Data was obtained from 1507 internet users in all the regions of Thailand via an online survey.
• Statistical techniques were performed including bias corrected bootstrap and SEM with multiple group analysis.
• Several alternatives models were compared using SEM to confirm the mediation effects.

This study examines the relationships among relevant service quality dimensions of Internet service providers (ISP) and their customers’ perceived value, trust and commitment. Data was collected from residential Internet users in Thailand. The final usable sample size was 1507. The analyses include segmenting ISPs’ customers on the basis of their usage pattern and evaluating their perceptions of Internet service quality dimensions. In addition, several alternatives models were compared using structural equation modelling to confirm the mediation effects. An ISP’s service quality is influenced by the following four dimensions (a) network quality, (b) customer service and technical support, (c) information quality and (d) security and privacy. The findings reveal that while all dimensions have positive effects on trust, only network quality, information support and privacy influence customer value significantly and information support is the only dimension which is directly related to commitment. Additionally, the effects of customer service and information support on value vary across customers of different Internet usage patterns. The contribution of the present paper stems from the simultaneous modelling of a range of mediation effects which can better help explain the impact of service quality dimensions on customers’ cognitive and affective evaluations in high-tech service settings.