Customer choice of self-service technology: the roles of situational influences and past experience

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore situational influences on customers' actual choice between self-service and personal service and to examine the impact of past experiences on self-service technology (SST) attitudes and behavior. Design/methodology/approach - A supermarket self-checkout machine is the SST under investigation. A mixed qualitative research design was used and a total of 209 observations and 47 interviews were obtained from customers in five supermarket stores in Australia. Findings - Perceived waiting time, perceived task complexity, and companion influence are the three situational factors that impact on a customer's actual choice between self-service and personal service. Past experiences influence SST attitudes and behavior in a more complex manner than SST characteristics and other individual difference variables. Research limitations/implications - The findings may not be generalizable to internet- or telephone-based SST contexts. Practical implications - By understanding what factors affect a customer's choice, better strategies can be developed to manage and coordinate multiple service delivery options. The findings also highlight the importance of preventing frequent failure and providing speedy recovery in the SST context. Originality/value - This paper goes beyond SST attitudes/intentions and focuses on the moderating effect of situational factors on a customer's actual SST behavior. It also examines the impact of focal product and product-norm experiences on SST attitudes and behavior.