Customer Cooperation and Organizational Support in the Adoption of Self-Service Technologies

Traditional service encounters have been transformed by technological advancements into Self-Service Technologies (SSTs), in which customers are expected to perform services independently. Customer collaboration with SSTs and organizational support determine how quickly these technological interfaces are adopted. Since the existing literature does not adequately explain this phenomenon, this study explores customer cooperative behaviour at SSTs and investigate customer perceptions of organizations' support for SST adoption. Additionally, it seeks to distinguish distinct customer experiences based on customer cooperativeness and organization's support. To accomplish these research objectives, a qualitative approach was used, conducting semi-structured interviews with 25 SST users from a range of demographic backgrounds. The analysis was conducted using a thematic approach. This study identified five critical customer corporative behaviours at SSTs: adhering to fundamental requirements, accepting terms and conditions, accepting responsibility, changing habits, and tolerating failures. Additionally, the study identified four distinct customer experiences based on the extent to which customers cooperate with SSTs and the organizational support they receive: Tired experience, Pleasant experience, Distressed experience, and Inoperative experience. The study contributes new knowledge by identifying consumer cooperative conduct in SSTs, a phenomenon that is rare in the previous literature, and contributing to the marketing theory by developing a typology to explain customer experience in SSTs based on customer cooperation and organizational assistance. Businesses can leverage this expertise to effectively foster consumer cooperation and deliver exceptional customer experiences through self-service technologies.