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Research Article

The Effect of Customer Pre-Readiness on Service Quality and Customer Value in Self-Service Technology

Choi, Byeongdon · Lee, Jungyo

Published: January 2011 · Vol. 40 No. 5 · pp. 1347-1373
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Abstract

This paper aimed to identify the acceptance factors of Self-Service Technology (SST), extract the factors constituting SST quality, and examine through which pathways these factors influence customer satisfaction and how they connect to customer loyalty outcomes such as reuse intention and word-of-mouth effects. Specifically, existing SST-related prior research was first reviewed to operationally define concepts and establish hypotheses, which were then verified through empirical research. Among the various types of SST, online shopping was selected as the survey target, judged to be the most representative, and 245 valid questionnaires collected from individuals with online shopping experience were empirically analyzed. Covariance structure analysis using structural equation modeling confirmed that customer technology readiness is an antecedent variable that directly affects the SST quality factors of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived cost savings, and perceived control. All four quality factors were found to have a positive effect on customer value. In particular, the effects of perceived usefulness and perceived cost savings, classified as outcome quality, were greater than those of perceived ease of use and perceived control, classified as process quality. Higher customer value was found to lead to higher customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction directly influenced customer loyalty in terms of reuse intention and word-of-mouth effects. Customer value also had a positive effect on reuse intention and word-of-mouth effects, and its influence on customer loyalty—including reuse intention and word-of-mouth—was found to be greater than that of customer satisfaction. Additionally, reuse intention was found to directly affect word-of-mouth effects. These results suggest that understanding customer technology readiness is necessary for effective SST operation and that SST quality should be improved in a direction that enhances substantive utility and outcome quality.
Keywords: 고객가치고객만족고객사전준비도구전효과구조방정식셀프서비스테크놀로지재이용의도지각된 비용절감지각된 사용용이성지각된 유용성지각된 주도권