Research on the Evaluation of Chinese Express Service Quality in
e-Commerce
Chunhui Yuan and Jie Liu
School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunication,
Xitucheng Street, Beijing, China
Keywords: Express Service Quality, Factor Analysis, Regression Analysis.
Abstract: This paper investigated the determinants that influence the quality of express service in China. Based on the
SERVQUAL model, a 22-item service quality evaluation system for Chinese express service was developed.
By factor analysis, we found that the express service quality evaluation comprises six determinants named
tangibility, economy, empathy, security, timeliness and convenience. Moreover, we used regression analysis
to explore the effects of those determinants on customer satisfaction and loyalty, found that the effects of
empathy, economy and timeliness are significant, and empathy is the most significant one. The findings
showed that due to the differing importance of the six determinants, Chinese express company should take
customized strategy to enhance their service quality, neglect of any determinant will lead to a drop of their
service quality.
1 INTRODUCTION
As basic public service, express delivery has become
one of the most essential parts of people’s daily life
and consumption. Under the circumstances of E-
commerce, China’s express industry has entered in a
high speed growth stage. According to the statistical
bulletin of the State Post Bureau, China’s express
delivery handled over 1.4 billion packages in 2014,
up 51.9% from a year earlier, and it is the first time
that the volume of express delivery in China surpass
the USA. A recent study by China e-Business
Research Center has shown that 80% of the express
business comes from the business-to-consumer
(B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
transactions, definitely making e-commerce an
essential driver of express delivery. As the scale of
express industry increased more and more rapidly, a
large number of domestic private express companies
mushroomed in China, causing competition to turn
white-hot (Zhuo et al., 2013), and exposed many
serious problems in service quality, especially in E-
commerce logistics.
Service quality is extremely important in the
express industry as it affects customer satisfaction
and loyalty (Kim et al., 2002). More and more
companies realized the important of service quality
and its impact on the competition. Service quality has
been widely investigated in many kinds of industry,
among the methods used to measure service quality,
the most widely used is the SERVQUAL.
Parasuraman et al., (1985) suggested that service
quality is the evaluation made by customer when they
compared the expectations and performance of the
received service, it was appropriate to calculate
service quality by subtracting expected service from
perceived service, and developed a 22-item
SERVQUAL instrument (Parasuraman et al., 1988).
In Chinese express industry, existing research
about service quality is mostly depended on
SERVQUAL, based on the PZB evaluation scale,
used factor analysis to get the determinants of express
service quality. ZHU and MIAO (2011) applied the
SERVQUAL instrument to express delivery, and
made some improvements that adapted to the Chinese
express industry. After the factor analysis, most
researches focused on the measure of overall service
quality by establishing a comprehensive evaluation
model using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (Ye et al.,
2010; Sun et al., 2010; Li et al., 2011). But little
research has explored the determinants separately and
their impacts on customer satisfaction and loyalty,
and it is essential to develop an effective method for
exploring the impact of each dimension to customer
461
Liu J. and Yuan C.
Research on the Evaluation of Chinese Express Service Quality in e-Commerce.
DOI: 10.5220/0006028604610465
In Proceedings of the Information Science and Management Engineering III (ISME 2015), pages 461-465
ISBN: 978-989-758-163-2
Copyright
c
 2015 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
461

satisfaction and loyalty. The purpose of this study is
to investigate service quality determinants in China
and the effects of those determinants on customer
satisfaction and loyalty.
2 METHODOLOGY
2.1 Questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed based on the
evaluation scale of PZB, and made some
improvements based on the characteristics of express
industry. The questionnaire contains two parts, the
basic information of the respondents and the
evaluation scale of express delivery service quality.
The evaluation scale consists of 22 items, all items
were worded in positive statements. In this
questionnaire, the construct of each question was
based on a 1-5 Likert scale with anchors ranging from
“very agree” to “very disagree” with “agree”,
“neutral” and “disagree” in between. Moreover, those
items in the questionnaire were discussed with
experts and professors, and made some improvement
on the narration.
The questionnaire issued through both online and
offline. 540 questionnaires were sent and recovered
432 questionnaires. Table 1 shows demographic
characteristics of the respondents. The age
distribution of the respondents range from 18 to 40, it
reflects that this age distribution is the target
consumer group of express service. It should be noted
that above 50% of them is university students. On one
hand, it reflects the limitation of sampling, on the
other hand, it means the university students is
becoming the main customer group of express
delivery service.
Table 1: Demographics of respondents.
Gender Male 50.2%
Female 49.8%
Age 18-40 years old 84.7%
>40 years old 12.6%
Education
High school 19.3%
Junior college 14.7%
University or above 65.9%
Industry
distribution
Student 42.2%
Other industry 51.4%
2.2 Factor Analysis
This study used exploratory factor analysis to
determine the express delivery service quality
determinants. Firstly, to test the reliability of the data,
the Coefficient Alpha is 0.942, greater than the cutoff
value of 0.70; hence the questionnaire has good
internal consistency and reliability. Then, to test the
validity of the data, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin is 0.876,
greater than the cutoff value of 0.70; and the p-value
of Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity is 0.000. Therefore,
the questionnaire has good validity, and the data is
suitable for factor analysis. To find the final express
delivery service quality determinants, varimax
rotation was used as it is a simple and efficient
method commonly used. The results showed that after
7 times of iteration, it gives 6 factors, the variance
contribution rate of each factor is 21.6%, 20.9%,
15.3%, 10.9%, 6.7%, 6.2%. Table 2 presents the
rotated factor pattern of the six factors, with each
factor with loadings higher than 0.500 in bold.
According to the result of the factor analysis,
those 22 items was summarized to six factors, named
of tangibility, economy, empathy, timeliness, security
and convenience. 1) Tangibility refers to the display
of physical evidences of express service, such as the
corporate logo, the physical facilities and equipment.
2) Economy refers to the customer’s perception to the
price, such as whether the express fee is reasonable.
3) Empathy refers to the care and attention to
individual customers that an express service company
could provide. 4) Timeliness refers to the degree of
ability to provide the service accurately and
efficiently, time and responsiveness are the most
important item for the express service company to
enhance their service quality. 5) Security refers to the
degree of ability to ensure the physical safety of
customer and the packages, and the ability to convey
trust and confidence by providing express service. 6)
Convenience refers to the degree of convenience
provided by the express service company, such as
whether the company's distribution range or the
service network is widely enough. Compared to the
original SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988),
economy is an additional determinants of express
delivery service quality in China, due to the white-hot
price competition in China’s express companies.
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Table 2: Express delivery service quality factor structure (rotated factor pattern).
Item
Factor
1 2 3 4 5 6
TA1:The company has obvious corporate logo on equipment and supplies 0.79
TA2:The uniform of this express company is clean and tidy 0.78
TA3:The brand logo has very high identification 0.78
TA4:The places of business are clean and tidy 0.72
TA:5The transportation equipment and devices are very advanced 0.62
EC1:The additional transportation fee is reasonable 0.78
EC2:The express fee is favorable compared with other competitor 0.78
EC3:The additional charges to the packing material is reasonable 0.74
EC4:The express fee is reasonable compared with the distribution distance 0.72
EC5:The return decimal price of the valuables is reasonable 0.63
EM1:The staff can have good communication with customer 0.82
EM2:The attitude of the staff is very friendly 0.81
EM3:You will recommend this company to others 0.65
EM4:The company can handle the customer complaints very well 0.62
T1: The company can deliver the packages to specified address. 0.80
T2: The company can finish the deliver in specified time. 0.79
S1:You feel safe using this company to transport valuables 0.76
S2:Your personal information can be well protected during the transaction 0.73
S3:The company can properly distribute the special goods 0.68
C1:The company's distribution range is very wide 0.85
C2:The company can be door-to-door pick-up 0.76
C3:The company’s branches are widely distributed 0.81
2.3 Regression Analysis
This study use regression analysis to explore the
effects of determinants of the express service quality
in China on customer satisfaction and loyalty. The
multivariable linear regression model contains
several independent variables, usually used to explore
the linear relationship between one dependent
variable and several independent variables, and to
make predictions based on the linear regression. In
this study, we used the six determinants as
independent variables, and the customer satisfaction
and customer loyalty as the dependent variable
respectively, built the multivariable linear regression
model of express service quality. Through the
Research on the Evaluation of Chinese Express Service Quality in e-Commerce
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Research on the Evaluation of Chinese Express Service Quality in e-Commerce
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regression model, we could explore the effect of each
determinant to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Before the regression analysis, we made normal test
and anova test to make sure the data of the
questionnaire was suitable for regression analysis,
and the two regression models are as follows. Table 3
is the regression analysis result which the customer
satisfaction is as the dependent variable. As we can
see in table3, the economy, empathy and timeliness
were significant to customer satisfaction, there Sig
were all less than 0.05. While the other three
determinants were not significant. In the end, the
multivariable linear regression model for customer
satisfaction can be described as:
Customer Satisfaction = −0.053 + 0.166
×economy
+0.397
×empathy+0.26×timeliness
(1)
Through this regression model, we can find that the
effect of empathy to customer satisfaction is the most
significant determinant. Table 4 is the regression
analysis result which the customer loyalty is as the
dependent variable. As we can see in table4, the
economy, empathy and timeliness were significant to
customer loyalty, there Sig were all less than 0.05.
While the other three determinants were not
significant. In the end, the multivariable linear
regression model for customer loyalty can be
described as:
Customer Loyalty = −0.374 + 0.175
×economy
+0.429
×empathy+0.203×timeliness
(2)
Through this regression model, we can find that the
effect of empathy to customer loyalty is the most
significant determinant.
3 CONCLUSION
This study investigates factors affecting express
service quality in China. By factor analysis, six
determinants were derived. Express service providers
should take these six determinants derived in the
current research as a whole set for express service
quality assessment. Neglect of any factor will lower
the service quality; which in return will be
detrimental to the overall improvement of the express
service quality in China. This study provides useful
insights for the Chinese express company to assess
express service quality and guidance to improve
express service quality. According to this study, the
new set of six determinants may be necessary to
adequately measure express service quality in china,
and have provided a more focused and more
manageable framework for understanding service
quality of Chinese express industry.
This study also explored the effects of each factor
derived from the factor analysis on customer
satisfaction and loyalty by regression analysis. As we
can see from the regression analysis results, the effect
of empathy, economy and timeliness on both
customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are
significant, and the empathy is the most significant
factor. On one hand, according to this result, the care
and attention to individual customers affects
customer satisfaction and loyalty the most, the
express service company should pay more attention
to the empathy factor in order to enhance their
customer satisfaction and loyalty. Moreover, the price
and the timeliness are also the important factors that
could affect customer satisfaction and loyalty. On the
other hand, the other three factors are not significant
in the regression analysis, it doesn’t mean there is no
need to consider those factors while enhance
customer satisfaction and loyalty. Because the
homogenization competition of express company,
and the standardized of express service industry, the
difference of customer’s perception to tangibility,
security, and convenience is not so obvious among
express companies. Therefore, due to the differing
importance of the six determinants, express company
should use different service enhancement strategy.
Express companies should consider both their
advantages and weak points, take customized strategy
to improve the overall service quality.
There were some limitations in this study. First, data
was collected from questionnaires that may have
some individual biases. Second, in future research,
the correlativity between customer satisfaction and
customer loyalty should be further investigate.
Finally, another worthwhile future research area is the
evaluation and contrast of express service quality
both in china and other countries.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge financial support from
program “Intellisense third-party express logistics
cloud service platform’s research and application”
(Grant No.2014BAH23F07).
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Table 3: The regression analysis for customer satisfaction.
Dependent
Variable
Independent
Variable
R Square
Adjusted R
Square
Constant β T Sig
Customer
satisfaction
economy
0.580 0.575 -0.053
0.16
6
3.64
6
0.000
empathy
0.39
7
7.48
0
0.000
timeliness
0.26
4
6.18
8
0.000
Table 4: The regression analysis for customer loyalty.
Dependent
Variable
Independent
Variable
R Square
Adjusted R
Square
Constan
t
β T Sig
Customer loyalty
economy
0.427 0.319 -0.374
0.175 2.511 0.012
empathy 0.429 5.278 0.000
timeliness 0.203 3.104 0.000
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