The role of mass customization toolkits’ characteristics in customer satisfaction with the design process

Abstract

In the study the concepts of mass customization and toolkits for user design were addressed with the aim to investigate the drivers of customer satisfaction with the co-design process. After thorough analysis of the existing literature and empirical studies on the topic the model of six main characteristics of a toolkit was developed in order to test how they influence the customization experience. The research model was tested on the data that was collected by means of online survey after selected sample of respondents were exposed to design activity using online configurator from Nike Inc. 206 answers of potential clients were used for quantitative analysis. Multiple and simple linear regression analyses that were used to test hypotheses showed that 4 out of 6 identified characteristics are positively related to satisfaction with the design process and that purchase intention of clients is affected by this satisfaction. It was also found that the strongest drivers of satisfaction with the co-creation experience are “design freedom” and “navigation usability”. The findings of the study are of great interest to mass customizing companies that want to improve the quality of their toolkits for user design and thus increase sales and bring more value to the customers.