Consumer Willingness to Invest Effort in Complex Technology-Based Self-Service: An Abstract

It has been well established that traditional service quality and performance are dependent on the interaction between service employees and their customers. With the advances in technological innovations, many of these interactions have been shifted to customers’ usage of self-service technologies (SSTs). SSTs are “technological interfaces that enable customers to produce a service independent of direct service employee involvement” (Meuter et al., 2000, p. 50). In these scenarios, the interaction takes place between the customer and the SST. Thus, the successful delivery of the service and its outcome are strongly dependent on the customer’s input. In this context, a plethora of studies have investigated various aspects of the supply-side, such as the design and ergonomics of SSTs and the demand-side, e.g., customer perceptions and acceptance of SSTs. A large part of research in this area has concentrated on short-term, non-complex interactions, such as money transfers through internet banking or placing orders on e-commerce websites. However, due to recent technological advances, increasingly more complex and longer-lasting services are now being provided through SSTs (legal, consulting, and educational services). In these contexts, customer participation (CP), and its dimension consumer effort (CE), is even more critical for service performance. Service research suggests that CE impacts customers’ expectations as well as service success (Berry et al., 2002). Against this background, we study customers’ willingness to invest effort (WIE) in a complex online service setting. We test a model that captures the antecedents of WIE, particularly intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and its outcomes (actual invested effort and final service performance). The contribution of our research is threefold: first, we identify factors that impact WIE in the use of SSTs in complex service settings; second, we uncover the mechanism through which WIE influences service outcomes; third, we provide managerial implications related to how user interaction with SSTs in complex services can be enhanced, thus leading to better service performance.