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■ 7.0 RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS

This study findings consist of several academic and practical implications. Academically, this is the first research to extend online booking
studies to home maintenance industry. Previous studies on the online booking were only discussed in hotel industries (Li et al., 2017 Tiamiyu et
al., 2020 and Amin et al., 2021) and tourism industries (Tengilimoglu and Hassan, 2019 and Jeng, 2019). Firstly, this study provided new
insights on how home maintenance customers respond to the online booking service using website. Secondly, this study identified key website
quality factors such as usability and complementarity that influence e-trust and online booking intention. The insignificant relationship of ease
of use and entertainment toward both e-trust and online booking intention can be further examined in future studies of online booking. The
insights gained from the present study will be sufficient to conduct further studies to explore more dimension of website qualities such as
transaction capability, response time, content relevance and graphic elements. Moreover, this study also provided guidelines to future researchers
to explore online booking effectiveness and online booking intentions in the untapped industries using these website quality factors.

Practically, this study provided effective marketing strategies for the home maintenance businesses that face threats in the area of customer
acquisitions in Malaysia. This study examined the website qualities, e-trust and online booking intention among the home maintenance
customers. As a result, usability, complementarity and e-trust are identified as significant factors that influence online booking intention. The
customer’s intention to do online booking is related to usability, complementarity and e-trust of the website. Prior studies (Li et al., 2017, Wang
et al., 2015 and Amin et al., 2021) that discussed usability and complementarity described that completeness of business and service information
and practical features such as navigation link, quick loading, call-to-action buttons and customer support are vital in developing both e-trust and
online booking intention. Hence, this study emphasizes that the marketers and business owners in the home maintenance industry should focus
on usability, complementarity and e-trust when creating a website to implement the online booking service. Moreover, this study also helps the
website developers to understand the expectations of home maintenance customers which is vary from the hotel customers. Li et al. (2017) found
that entertainment of website has positive and significant influence on the online booking intention among hotel customers. This study found
that entertainment of website does not have positive relationship with e-trust and online booking intention. Hence, the survey results of this
study serves as guidelines for website developers to create a functional and effective home maintenance website that meets home maintenance
customer’s expectations.

On the other side, this study proposed and executed online booking using website as a marketing strategy for a local home maintenance business,
Nasesz Enterprise. The idea of online booking was inspired from Kaodim.my which is online marketplace for home services where customers
can book the registered service providers in their website. However, limitation in term of booking confirmation was identified in that website
as registered service providers required to approve the booking based on their availability. Conversely, this study has enabled Nasesz Enterprise
as sole proprietor home maintenance business to provide live schedule in the newly designed website where users can easily book home
maintenance service on the available time and date slots, in which, booking confirmation could be made instantly without waiting for the
approval from service provider. Consequently, Nasesz Enterprise received more service bookings from the website during the intervention.
Also, although online booking in the home maintenance industry is less popular in Malaysia, the survey results and intervention results indicated
a positive response on the implementation of online booking for home maintenance services.

■ 8.0 LIMITATION AND RECOMMENDATION FOR FUTURE STUDIES

This study successfully analyzed the website quality and e-trust variables that drive online booking intention for home maintenance services,
proposed online booking as a marketing strategy for Nasesz Enterprise's customer acquisition, and determined the effectiveness of the
implemented marketing strategy. Although this study has important implications for home maintenance services, it has several limitations that
should be addressed and improved in future research. Firstly, this study used an online data collection method where this process of data collection
was challenging and often involved several follow-up messages to the respondents to fill the questionnaire. Respondents are usually very
disinclined to fill surveys online as it feels boring. Future research should consider parallel data collection methods using both face-to-face
printed questionnaire and online surveys to increase the response rate.

Secondly, the sample size of 150 in this study was too small to represent the entire population of property owners, tenants,
and tenders in Malaysia. Although this study met the minimum sample size requirement, the sample size in future studies
can be increased to 300 which could better represent the targeted population. Hence, it is recommended to use larger sample
size for future studies. Moreover, this study adopted quantitative approach where the findings could solely depend on the
responses from sample group. Some bias associated with respondent demographics in term age groups could be unavoidable
if the online data collection method used. This is because the internet literacy among senior adults aged 50 and above are still
low meanwhile the young adults will be more inclined to respond to the questionnaire which subsequently affect the
findings. Therefore, combination of statistical data (quantitative method) and focus group discussions (qualitative method)
could be effective to eliminate the bias and help future studies to gain deeper and holistic findings. Hence, it is
recommended for future studies to adopt both quantitative and qualitative research method. Lastly, the intervention was
conducted for Nasesz Enterprise, thus, future researchers could extend the online booking to other industries.

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