Source:
Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (forthcoming) (2007)
Keywords:
service operations management, service delivery system, self-service technology
Abstract:
Innovations in technology and service design have increasingly enabled firms to incorporate selfservice
technology to augment or substitute for “traditional” employee-provided service channels.
Although it is clear that self-service can reduce cost, less is known about how customers utilize
self-service channels in a multi-channel service delivery system and the resulting impact on firm
performance. An important aspect of service operations is that customers are co-producers of the
service. Thus, the performance of the delivery system and customers’ use of service channels can
be affected by customers’ own efficiency or productivity in service co-production (customer
efficiency). In this paper we utilize prior theoretical frameworks in service operations and
economics to hypothesize relationships among customer characteristics (especially co-production
efficiency), channel utilization, and firm performance. We then test these hypotheses using
panel data from a large retail bank. Overall, we find that higher customer efficiency in selfservice
channels is associated with greater profitability and has a complex relationship with
customer retention and product utilization.
Notes:
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