Exploring The Customer Satisfaction In a Global Context: The Case Of Elite Soccer League Websites.

Exploring the customer satisfaction in a global context: The case of elite soccer league websites.

Marvin E Gonzalez
1. ABSTRACT This paper describes the use of Quality Function Deployment and Benchmarking technique to evaluate Sport Organizations Web sites, in the particular the case of Elite Soccer leagues. We used the 22 basic questions of WebQual 2.0 as the customer expectations; then, weevaluated the perceived quality and performance (customer satisfaction) of five professional soccer leagues websites. Using the dimensions of WebQual as the voice of the customers, we analyzed the impact of the website on the customers in order to evaluate the current online marketing strategy. Five international well known soccer teams from the most competitive and financially wealthy leaguesare assessed using a survey. Data are collected from students using an on-line questionnaire and a Likert scale was used (1 to 5). Analyses of the results explain a rigorous and well planned marketing strategy in the professional leagues to keep the public informed and to increase the position of their brands. The findings and their implications for e-commerce and design of online marketing strategyare discussed and conclusions will be provided.

Field of Research: Sport Management, Electronic Commerce; Quality Improvement in service organizations

1. Introduction
There has been a consistent increase in online spending over the past 11 years, and that trend is not going to change any time soon. According to (Stokes & Jensen, 2011) “sales from electronic retailing, or e-tailing,continue to escalate in relation to other areas, including in store shopping”. Most of the literature sustains that e-commerce business is still growing and growing year by year. According to Forrester Research Institute online retail sales aren’t growing at the torrid pace they once were, but they continue to grow steadily.

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Decision Sciences and Supply Chain Management areaSchool of Business College of Charleston, 6 Liberty St Charleston, SC. 29424 (843)-953-4276 gonzalezm@cofc.edu

This prestigious research center put out a new five-year forecast predicting that ecommerce sales in the U.S. will keep growing at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate through 2014, data is depicted in Figure 1. It forecasts that online retail sales in the U.S. will be nearly $250billion, up from $155 billion in 2009. Last year, online retail sales were up 11 percent, compared to 2.5 percent for all retail sales. More interesting data is provided by the U.S government: e-commerce sales will represent 8 percent of all retail sales in the U.S. by 2014, up from 6 percent in 2009. As can be seen in Figure 1, 154 million people in the U.S. bought something online during 2009. Inother words, 67 percent of the online population came from the US (4 percent more than in 2008). This is in contrast with regular commerce figures in which 95% of the customers are outside the USA.

Figure 1 Online sales forecast (Forrester, 2011)

As any business to business (B2B), the explosion of internet sales depend on products, brands, popularity, market and the marketing strategydeveloped. Literature is rich in online examples related to retail services, books, auction houses, and even gambling websites. However, there is a lack in the literature in the area of sports management. This paper presents an empirical study, conducted on students to obtain a perspective on the quality of a set of professional sports organizations websites (international and well known soccer teams).The customer requirements are based on WebQual dimensions provided by (Barnes & Vidgen, 2002) and the technical requirements are based on online marketing strategies recommended by the research team. The Quality Function Deployment and benchmarking process were applied to identify what is the perceived quality and performance of the teams’ websites. 2. Theoretical Background Customer satisfaction-...