Assessing configurators user need for social interaction during product configuration process

Commercial websites, including online sales configurators, are increasingly implementing technologies that enable social interactions, in order to provide users with social interaction possibilities that characterize retail shopping. One of these implementation strategies refers to connecting commercial websites to social software. Social software are web-based applications that support web users in social networking, interacting, sharing content and thus, in collecting feedback from various referents (e.g. user's online contacts, other web users, company representatives). Given the variety of possible connections between social software and configurators, mass customizers need to choose which connection(s) to implement, if any, to fulfil the configurator user need for social interaction. To make this choice, it is useful to be able to: (a) identify the various facets of the social interaction as user/consumer's navigation behaviour (b) measure the strength of configurator users’ need for social interaction. Being able to assess the user need for social interaction could help mass customizers enhance the proactive support provided to the user during his/her configuration process. Accordingly, this study presents an exploratory analysis (a) by examining various facets of the social interaction need and subsequently (b) by proposing a multi-item scale to measure the social interaction need. The present paper aims at contributing research into the key role of feedback delivered to users from different referents during the configuration process and sheds further light on new online customers’ needs.