Detailed Empirical Results Hypothesis 1: To confirm that the exposition to younger generations
have higher expectations compared to older ones, the re-
sults involving the customer expectations would have
presented different values when comparing younger re-
spondents and older ones.
The three values taken in consideration in the survey
were: the expected window of days to be eligible for a
refund when returning a good; the response time from the
customer service; the amount of contact methods availa-
ble to reach the customer service.
The respondents were clustered in three main groups:
those younger than 26 years old (30 respondents); those
between 27 and 37 years old (55 people) and finally,
those older than 37 years old (30 people). The groups
were organized as representing the Generation X, the
Generation Y and the younger respondents.
In terms of returns, the respondents were invited to pro-
vide their expected return window to be eligible for a re-
fund. While the older generation seemed to have higher
expectations compared to the younger ones, this was
mainly due to the fact that the middle group (27-37 years
old) presented a wider range of responses. When tested
with an ANOVA and a Tukey test, all values were indi-
cated not statistically relevant, as they were all presenting
a much higher significance than 5% (Tables 1 and 2).
In terms of response time, the interviewees were asked to
indicate their satisfaction level on a 5 values scale, with
different response times from a Customer Service. The
values offered were: Immediate, 6 hours, 24 hours, 48
hours, 72 hours. Younger generations seemed to present
slightly higher satisfaction values with higher response
times, compared to the other groups. Again, the results
would indicate that the satisfaction rates seem higher for
the younger generations compared to the older ones.
Also in this case an ANOVA and Tukey test revealed that
the results present a higher significance than 5%.
In terms of the availability of contact methods, the re-
spondents were asked to select which contact methods
they expect to find when contacting a Customer Service.
The methods offered were: Chat, Phone, E-mail and Text
Message. The difference in the quantity of expected con-
tact methods offered, based on the group, would indicate
if the younger generations have higher expectations on
this aspect.
Since, also in this case, the result is to be considered not
statistically relevant after an ANOVA test, Hypothesis 1
could not be confirmed.
Table 1:
Anova test on the duration of the return window