Using deep learning to enhance electronic service quality: Application to real estate websites

•Deep learning could be used to advance visual descriptive features in e-services.•Visual descriptive features enhance the e-service tangibility and service quality.•Visual descriptive features could be used as search filters in e-services websites.•Damage Level is a visual descriptive feature that displays and estimates damage in real estate images.•Real estate websites could use damage level as a search filter to enhance the search process efficiency. Electronic service quality (E-SQ) is a strategic metric for successful e-services. Among the service quality dimensions, tangibility is overlooked. However, by incorporating visuals or tangible tools, the intangible nature of e-services can be balanced. Thanks to advancements in Deep Learning for computer vision, tangible visual features can now be leveraged to enhance the browsing and searching experience electronic services. Users usually have specific search criteria to meet, but most services won't offer flexible search filters. This research emphasizes the importance of integrating visual and descriptive features to improve the tangibility and efficiency of e-services. A prime example of an electronic service that can benefit from this is real-estate websites. Searching for real estate properties that match user preferences is usually demanding and lacks visual filters, such as the Damage Level to the property. The research introduces a novel visual descriptive feature, the Damage Level, which utilizes a deep learning network known as Mask-RCNN to estimate damage in real estate images. Additionally, a model is developed to incorporate the Damage Level as a tangible feature in electronic real estate services, with the aim of enhancing the tangible customer experience.