Trustworthiness

Trust and trustworthiness are extensively discussed concepts in the context of electronic services. To my knowledge, a great share of the prior research on trust in electronic ser-vices, or e-commerce, is somewhat related to the extent of trust between the customer and the service provider (e.g. Gounaris, Dimitriadis, and Stathakopoulos 2005; Hwang and Kim 2007), and the other interest groups (e.g. Shankar, Urban, and Sultan 2002).

Also trustworthiness of the information available on the Web sites has been investi-gated (e.g. Flavián et al. 2006). However, in addition to the trustworthiness of the infor-mation, less attention, if any, is paid to examining the trustworthiness of the electronic servic-escape as a whole. The empirical results of this study clearly indicate that in the context of electronic insurance services trustworthiness of the self-service natured service environment is a crucial factor affecting how appealing customers perceive the environment. My opinion is that the importance of trustworthiness in this context certainly refers to the general in-sight by the customers that insurance business as a whole should create trust. This inin-sight is also supported by the following citation gathered from the empirical data:

P11: That’s why it [offering insurance services on the Internet] is challenging because insurance issues are such that they really demand trust and so forth…

In the scope of the study term trustworthiness is defined as the ability of the electronic insurance servicescape to get the customers convinced to operate in it. Two conceptual sub-categories for determining the nature of “trustworthiness” are derived from the empirical data: functionality and visual informativeness. The conceptual nature of trustworthiness is depicted in Figure 34.

“Functionality” as a sub-characteristic for trustworthiness refers to “transactions” and

“personal assistance” dimensions of the electronic insurance servicescape. Similarly as in case of clearness, “visual informativeness” referring to “visual outlook” and “information”

dimensions of the electronic servicescape plays a crucial role in characterizing the trust-worthiness.

Functionality

One crucial point to the customers operating in the electronic service environment is that everything works. Otherwise the customers might lose their trust in electronic services, and thereby, become reluctant to use them. In terms of electronic insurance servicescape, functionality in the context of trustworthiness especially refers to transactions dimension.

The empirical results reveal that unworkable services clearly decrease trustworthiness of the electronic servicescape from the customers’ point of view as the following citation indicates:

P4: … how do you create trust in the end? Like if you go on the Internet, how is it [trust]

created there in the electronic world? … If in there [electronic service environment]

something goes wrong, then the trust is out the window.

Furthermore, the interviewees clearly express that receiving a confirmation of the per-formed transactions (e.g. buying, reporting a claim) is important in terms of convincing the customer of the functionality of the electronic transactions, and thereby, increasing trustworthiness. More concretely, this means that customers are delivered a clear message that their transaction(s) are noticed by a service provider, and will be processed. In addi-tion, sending confirmation reflects customer orientation. These arguments are supported by the citations below:

P16: In other words, the matter is being processed once you’ve completed the coupon, like you can trust that when some message comes, it has [electronic transaction] really truly gone forward.

P18: Well in a way it’s about taking it into consideration… so… letting you know like thanks for contacting us and so forth.

FIGURE 34. CONCEPTUALIZING “TRUSTWORTHINESS”THROUGH THE DIMENSIONS OF ELECTRONIC SERVICESCAPE

Personal Assistance Visual Oulook

Information

Transactions TRUSTWORTHINESS

Visual Informativeness Functionality

In addition to “transactions”, functionality also associates with personal assistance dimen-sion of the electronic insurance servicescape. The empirical results indicate that while cus-tomers are operating in the electronic servicescape the awareness of having the option for getting personal assistance if needed may increase trustworthiness. Although telephone was generally perceived as the best option for contacting a service provider, also chat ser-vice was suggested to have similar influence on trustworthiness of the electronic insur-ance servicescape perceived by the customers as is expressed by the following citation:

P3: … the chat probably creates quite a lot of trust, because you’re able to get in touch with a [customer service person] a little bit… It’s a little bit like calling, phone or simi-lar… then it can create trust.

As it can be interpreted from the above presented discussion, functionality of the transac-tions supported with possibilities to contact the service provided clearly has an increas-ing effect on trustworthiness of the electronic insurance servicescape perceived by the customers. In more general terms, an interesting, and also new, notion concerning the trustworthiness of the electronic servicescape was that customers perceived that a chat service would create trust. In this regard, it is justified to argue that “ interactive features”

as well as “personal assistance” may certainly increase the trustworthiness of the electronic insurance servicescape.

Visual informativeness

In the context of trustworthiness visual informativeness refers to the ability of visual ele-ments (e.g. colors, pictures, and animations) to create trust towards the electronic servicescape from customers’ point of view. In line with the notion that insurance should create trust, the empirical results show that emphasizing the role of colors and pictures on the Web might decrease customers’ trust towards the electronic service environment. This is the case es-pecially when the visual elements are too lively and/or somewhat unsuitable for the context in which they are used as can be interpreted through the following citation:

P7: the one on the left [traditional example] is more reliable. Definitely. Because in that [novel example]… they’ve used animated characters, and that kind of visual material refers more to children’s world than to insurance services.

However, visualizing information in a way that it serves the context, as is the case in “in-surance cover evaluator” service concept, was not perceived to decrease trust. Instead, lively colors, pictures, and animations support the service content if their main purpose is not to entertain, but rather, better illustrate the electronic servicescape and/or the functionality of the electronic service(s) to the customers:

P7: … when during the interview there [has] been two examples of sort of playful or game-like style, I mean those pictures in the beginning of dogs and etc. [novel exam-ple], took away some credibility, but the visual material in that game [”insurance cover evaluator”] was not like that. Even though they were similar…

P10: … their [”insurance cover evaluator”] visual look was sort of simplified, it was meant to give information and not to entertain [novel example]…

As became evident in the discussion on the characteristics of traditional and novel elec-tronic service environments (see chapters 7.1 and 7.2) the amount of information is per-ceived a crucial issue by the customers. According to the empirical data, a tendency in case of traditional approach seemed to be that there is a lot of information available on the Internet, even too much. On the contrary, novel electronic service environment tends to offer remarkably less information, in some cases even just scarcely enough.

In this regard, the empirical results suggest that the amount of information affects the trustworthiness of the electronic insurance servicescape. Too little amount of informa-tion might cause subconscious mistrust, and thereby, decrease customers’ trust towards the electronic insurance servicescape as the following citations indicate:

P23: Yes the [traditional example] would be credible, where as that [novel example] is still a bit cheery and what not, and somehow that is more reliable [traditional example]

than this one. So in this one [novel example], if you didn’t know the company… because there isn’t that much text, you might get suspicious subconsciously or something.

P7: Me too, it makes me a bit suspicious, that would I really find [novel example] all the information I need from there after all.

On the other hand, however, too much information might pose a threat that the custom-ers might get lost in the electronic servicescape. In that sense, the empirical results indi-cate that from the customers’ point of view simplified and clear (information) structure might even increase the trustworthiness of the electronic service environment since the customers are aware of where they are located:

P16: But on the other hand this kind of clear and simplified style adds to the credibility more than having a lot of stuff, from which you’re supposed to recognize the essential.

So from that one [novel example] you can clearly see what they are talking about and you can even understand it. In my opinion that’s important from the customer’s point of view, that you understand what it’s about, so when it goes that far that you’re com-pletely lost, it really gets to you.

Visual informativeness, as it is determined in this study, might not necessarily be the first conceptual dimension that comes to the mind while discussing trustworthiness which, however, somewhat refers to seriousness and matter-of-fact nature. Despite this, the em-pirical results of this study indicate that even in a serious and matter-of-fact context, such as insurance, trustworthiness may be increased by the visual elements as well as clear and orga-nized structure of the service environment as is established through the discussion above.

All in all, the discussion on the trustworthiness of the electronic insurance services-cape established that being trustworthy does not necessarily mean being serious and mat-ter-of-fact. Trustworthiness might also be gained by increasing livelier, but naturally still functional, elements to the electronic insurance servicescape.