Building trust over the Internet : design and prototyping of an advocacy website

The Internet has empowered consumers with information, options, and a simple mechanism for transaction. Although the Internet has not completely replaced traditional shopping methods, it has brought about a change in the balance of power between suppliers and consumers. Many suppliers have responded to this change by adapting their marketing strategies from traditional push-based practices to more consumer centered trusted-based methodologies. In the wireless industry, Qwest Communications International, Inc. has taken a leading step in building consumer trust through the development of an advocacy website to help consumers select the best service packages available to them. In collaboration with Qwest, the MIT e-business Center has designed and implemented a functional prototype, My Wireless Advocate [1], that includes both successful advice-based features and innovative advocacy-based features such as retro-active pricing strategies and creating your own wireless plans. A preliminary focus group study has shown that consumers are ready for more trust-based business models in the online wireless industry, and that the Qwest project is definitely a step in the right direction. It is clear that once the major trust busters are fixed and the website is completed to a production level, it will be very useful and attractive for consumers, and raise general consumer awareness and trust toward Qwest.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Ma, Sha, 1981-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Glen Urban.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28454

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28454