Participative customers as partial employees and service provider workload

Abstract

For service providers, whether customers can act the role of partial employees when participating in the service production and delivery process is a subject that has been receiving conflicting explanations and has not been analysed empirically. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between customer participation and service providers' perceived workload. Empirical results of survey data collected from 293 customer‐contact employees at 64 restaurants in Taiwan indicate that customer participation is positively related to service providers' perceived workload, which implies that it is inappropriate to decrease the number of service employees based on service designs that include customer participation. Implications of these findings for managing customer participation, as well as future research directions, are subsequently discussed.

The effect of self-checkout quality on customer satisfaction and repatronage in a retail context

“…Increasingly, supermarkets are viewing self-checkout as an alternative to hiring and training staff, and thus as a source of potential savings (Walker et al 2002;Dabholkar et al 2003;Orel and Kara 2014), increased productivity (Curran et al 2003;Weijters et al 2007;Wang 2012), and a way to reach new customer segments (Bitner et al 2002;Elliott et al 2012). The use of SST also limits problems usually associated with heterogeneity and perishability by providing a more consistent service atmosphere, since the human element of service delivery is eliminated or minimized (Hsieh et al 2004;Beatson et al 2007;Elliott et al 2013). Furthermore, it allows service providers to reclaim valuable floor space for additional sales (Collier and Kimes 2013) and to redeploy their employees to areas where special customer service is needed (Lee and Allaway 2002;.…”

Managing Engagement Behaviors in a Network of Customers and Stakeholders

“…On the one hand, frontline employees need to invest time and energy in customer socialization and support, which increases their workload (Hsieh, Yen, and Chin 2004). On the other hand, frontline employees need to understand customers to socialize and support them in an efficient and effective way (Homburg, Wieseke, and Bornemann 2009).…”

La automatización en el sector terciario: evolución del service encounter

“…Por tanto, la empresa tratará de obtener cierto grado de cooperación por parte del cliente, presentando éste así dos dimensiones: una externa a la empresa y otra interna donde participa en las operaciones de la misma (Tat Keh & Wei Teo, 2001;Hsieh, Yen, & Chin, 2004).…”