Personal service request categories and their facilitation with self-service technologies

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to identify and categorize customer’s personal service requests and to determine the extent to which these categories can be facilitated with self-service technologies (SST). Hence, this study bridges the gap between customer service and self-service. This is particularly relevant, as a knowledge gap has been identified between the research field of personal customer service and SST. Thus, concepts significant to both fields are reviewed and applied in the preliminary framework which guides the data collection and provides a structure for the findings and analysis. Considering it’s exploratory nature, the research applies a qualitative approach. Following a single case study approach, this study utilizes a self-service retail store in Sweden and UK. In terms of data collection the study implements an abductive approach while taking an interpretivist stance in regard to the data analysis. Aiming at data triangulation, multiple sources of evidence were deployed in two different markets. In a first step, participant observations were carried out before employee shadowing. Thereafter, ten semi-structured employee interviews and twenty in-depth customer interviews were conducted and supported by photo-elicitation. Finally, this research accomplished its objectives by categorizing customer’s personal service requests and identifying the extent to which these can be facilitated with SSTs. While some of the personal service request categories confirm or reject existing knowledge, others newly emerged from the findings of this study. An unexpected finding of this research is that based on newly developed criteria each of the identified personal service request categories can be assigned a distinct level of advisory. Similar to this, criteria were also established to assess the level of SST that can be utilized to facilitate each personal service request category. Another contribution of this study is the relationship between the level of advisory and the level of SST which has been identified based on the findings of this study.