Leonard L, Berry, Kathleen Seiders, & Dhruv Grewal Understanding Service Convenience The subject of service convenience is important in service economies, yet little is known about this topic The con- sumer convenience literature���strong in certain respects, underdeveloped in other respects���^ives insufficient attention to service convenience. The prevailing pattern is either to treat service convenience generally or to lump services and goods together into an overall convenience construct. The authors seek to stimulate a higher level of research activity and dialogue by proposing a more comprehensive and multidimensional conceptualization of ser- vice convenience and a model delineating its antecedents and consequences. The authors build their case by sys- tematically examining the convenience literature, explicating the dimensions and types of service convenience developing the overall model and related research propositions, and presenting directions for further research Cto onsumer convenience in buying and using services is not well understood. Convenience is acknowledged be increasingly important to consumers, yet no known research has defined the service convenience con- struct or examined how it is evaluated. Although most researchers and managers consider service convenience to involve more than locational proximity or hours of opera- tion, the specific types of service convenience have not been established, and no comprehensive analytical framework has been presented in the literature. Observers have long noted consumers' interest in con- serving time and effort (see, e.g., Anderson 1972 Gross and Sheth 1989 Kelley 1958 Nickols and Fox 1983). This phe- nomenon has encouraged the development of convenience goods and services, increased advertisers' promotion of the time-oriented benefits of their products, and motivated con- sumers to use convenience as a basis for making purchase decisions (Anderson and Shugan 1991 Gross and Sheth 1989 Jacoby, Szybillo, and Berning 1976). The continuous rise in consumer demand for convenience has been attrib- uted to socioeconomic change, technological progress, more competitive business environments, and opportunity costs that have risen with incomes (Berry 1979 Etgar 1978 Gross 1987 Seiders, Berry, and Gresham 2000). Because the demand for convenience has become so strong, marketers must develop a more precise and complete understanding of the concept. Convenience is integral to the marketing of both goods and services and merits deeper examination in both cases. Our focus in this article is service convenience, which we conceptualize as consumers' time and effort perceptions related to buying or using a service. We propose the different types of service convenience and consider how time and effort costs influence consumers' convenience perceptions. Leonard L. Berry is Distinguished Professor of f\/larketing and MB. Zaie Chair in Retailing and Markeling Leadership, Texas A&M University. Kath- leen Seiders is Associate Professor of Marketing and Constantine Simonides Term Chair, and Dhruv Grewal is Toyota Chair of e-Commerce and Electronic Business and Professor of Marketing, Babson Coliege.The authors thank the four anonymous JM reviewers, Rajan Varadarajan, Michael Tsiros, and Gopalkrishnan Iyer for their helpful comments on pre- vious drafts of this article. In some convenience studies, the distinction between service and goods convenience is clear. For example, con- sumers' convenience orientation has been related to all products that save consumers time and effort���both "labor- saving" goods (e.g., frozen dinners) and services (e.g., child care). Some proposed aspects of the convenience construct are specific to manufactured goods. These include product size, preservability, packaging, and design, which can reduce consumers' time and effort in purchasing, storage, and use (Anderson and Shugan 1991 Kelley 1958). How- ever, many discussions of goods-related convenience are distribution oriented, focusing on convenience related to the distribution of goods through retailers, which falls in the realm of service convenience. All types of convenience that reduce consumers' time or effort in shopping, such as oper- ating hours or credit availability, belong to the domain of service convenience. Service organizations create value for consumers through performances. All businesses are service businesses to some degree. Computer manufacturers and food retailers create consumer value through a goods-services mix. Com- mercial banks and hospitals create consumer value largely through services. Service convenience facilitates the sale of goods as well as the sale of services. Fast checkout in a retail store is service convenience, as are available, competent salespeople who help consumers find the right garment to buy. Because virtually all organizations create value for con- sumers through performances and because convenience is an important consideration for most consumers, it follows that understanding service convenience better is useful. The extant convenience literature offers little explicit discussion of service convenience. Much of this literature is relevant to service convenience but lacks the specificity and compre- hensiveness that more focused efforts could bring. We seek to provide such focus in this article. The Convenience Literature The concept of convenience first appeared in the marketing literature in relation to categories of products. Copeland's (1923) classification of consumer products included conve- nience goods: intensively distributed products that require minimal time and physical and mental effort to purchase. Journal of Marketing Vol. 66 (July 2002), 1-17 Understanding Service Convenience / 1

Later product classification scbemas also incorporated tbe convenience goods category (e.g., Bucklin 1963 Murpby and Enis 1986). Thus, in early marketing usage, "conve- nience" denoted tbe time and effort consumers used in pur- chasing a product rather than a characteristic or attribute of a product (Brown 1990). Focusing on resources such as time, opportunity, and energy that consumers give up to buy goods and services, some researchers began to view conve- nience as an attribute that reduces the nonmonetary price of a product (Etgar 1978 Kelley 1958 Kotler and Zaltman 1971). Because the issue of nonmonetary cost is central to the convenience concept, literature related to time and energy expenditure (effort) is particularly relevant to our research. The literature on time is substantial and multi- disciplinary in nature the literature on effort is smaller and limited primarily to cognitive effort. Two specific marketing literature streams also are salient to our study. The first and most extensive stream is the consumer wait- ing literature, which examines how consumers respond to waiting and how firms manage the waiting process. The second stream focuses on consumer convenience orienta- tion, examining why some consumers are more likely than others to purchase convenience-related goods and services. Research on Time Researchers characterize time as a limited and scarce resource (Jacoby, Szybillo, and Berning 1976) the term saving time actually means reallocating time across activi- ties to achieve greater efficiency (Feldman and Hornik 1981). Time, unlike money, cannot be expanded it is finite (Berry 1979 Gross 1987). Although time usage in con- sumption can be perceived as either an investment or a cost, it is more common to view it as a cost (Anderson and Shugan 1991). Becker (1965) incorporated time into the classic economic choice model, recognizing that time, like income and price, constrains choice. Economic household production models such as Becker's acknowledge that time is used in production (work) and consumption (leisure): Consumers sell time in the labor market and buy it with time-saving goods and services (Feldman and Hornik 1981). Researchers following a time budget allocation approach view the cost of time as an opportunity cost of forgone income or participation in other activities (Bivens and Volker 1986). Consistent with economic theory, the market- ing literature has assumed a relationship between time scarcity and consumers' desire for goods and services that offer convenience. Time-related consumer research includes studies of time allocation, temporal orientation and perception, and cultural influences (Gross and Sheth 1989 Voli 1998). Time alloca- tion, an outcome of demographic, socioeconomic, and psy- chographic determinants, influences lifestyle and consump- tion behavior (Holbrook and Lehmann 1981). Consumer researchers have focused on time expenditures associated with information acquisition and choice behavior (Jacoby, Szybillo, and Berning 1976). Most studies have modeled and analyzed activities as if people performed them one at a time (monochronic time use), but respondents have reported combining activities (polychronic time use) (Kaufman, Lane, and Lindquist 1991). Studies indicate that people differ in their temporal ori- entation, including perceived time scarcity, the degree to which they value time, and their sensitivity to time-related issues (Bergadaa 1990 Durrande-Moreau and Usunier 1999 Graham 1981 Hornik 1984 Murphy and Enis 1986 Shimp 1982). Noting that cultural factors can affect attitudes toward time, Gagliano and Hathcote (1994) examine how cultural differences affect the evaluation of convenience. Luqmani, Yavas, and Quraeshi (1994) use convenience ori- entation as an international market segmentation variable. Time has been classified according to work and non- work roles nonwork includes activities of necessary self- maintenance, household maintenance, and leisure (Hol- brook and Lehmann 1981). Classifying activities allows an understanding of why noneconomic variables are significant ���why consumers sometimes seek to prolong rather than minimize time expenditures (Jacoby, Szybillo, and Berning 1976). For example, consumers may choose a mode of travel that is more expensive and time-consuming than alter- natives (Feldman and Hornik 1981). Research on Effort Consumers' energy expenditures, or effort, are acknowl- edged to be a distinct type of nonmonetary cost that, like time, influences perceived convenience (Seiders, Berry, and Gresham 2000) and satisfaction (Lovelock 1994). Downs (1961) cites the basic costs of consumption as. money, time, and effort, and Mabry (1970) notes that sta- mina constraints, in addition to time and money con- straints, influence choices among activities (Jacoby, Szy- billo, and Berning 1976). In consumer convenience research, however, the role of energy expenditures has received far less attention than the role of time expendi- tures. Because the convenience literature has concentrated almost exclusively on saving time, attributes that save work are perceived instead as saving time (Brown 1990). For example, O'Shaughnessy (1987) explain.' performance-based product choice by noting that con- sumers buy time by using brands that are more labor sav- ing (Voli 1998). Effort has been viewed as a relevant and positive input to an exchange: In an equitable exchange, the more effort one party exerts, the more outcome he or she expects in return (see Oliver and Swan 1989). Youngdahl and Kel- logg (1997) relate effort to time, thought (intellectual effort), and emotion. Mohr and Bitner (1995), in the con- text of employee behavior, suggest the dimensions of physical, cognitive, and emotional effort. These dimen- sions are likely to apply equally well to consumers of services. The dimension of physical effort has received little attention in consumer research, and emotional effort has been explored only slightly more (in relation to the psycho- logical costs of waiting). However, cognitive (or mental) effort has been the focus of many studies in psychology, decision theory, economics, and marketing (Bettman, John- son, and Payne 1990). A consistent finding is that people have limited cognitive resources and, as cognitive misers . 2 / Journal of Marketing, July 2002

conserve these resources during decision making (Fennema and Kleinmuntz 1995 Fiske and Taylor 1984). Studies sug- gest that people have only limited ability to estimate or pre- dict how much effort will be required by a task (Fennema and Kleinmuntz 1995). Moreover, Bettman, Johnson, and Payne (1990) find significant individual differences in con- sumers' perceptions of required effort. Consumer Waiting Several marketing studies have focused on the management of consumer waiting time (Durrande-Moreau and Usunier 1999 Katz, Larson, and Larson 1991). Researchers have defined two aspects of waiting time that influence con- sumers' evaluation of convenience (Davis and Vollmann 1990). Objective time is continuous and metric and can be measured by clocks. Subjective time is based on perceptions and influenced by psychological factors (Durrande-Moreau and Usunier 1999). Research suggests that consumers, on average, significantly overestimate time spent waiting (Hornik 1984). Although waiting for service delivery traditionally has been treated as an economic (or time) cost, the psychological cost of waiting also has been documented by consumer researchers (Carmon, Shanthikumar, and Carmon 1995 Osuna 1985 Pruyn and Smidts 1998). The stress, boredom, anxiety, and annoyance often triggered by waiting influence consumers' service evaluations and satisfaction with the firm (Dube-Rioux, Schmitt, and Leclerc 1989 Kumar, Kalwani, and Dada 1997 Taylor 1994). Recent marketing studies have examined the factors that influence consumers' reactions to waiting and the methods firms can use to manage satisfaction with waiting (Durrande-Moreau and Usunier 1999 Pruyn and Smidts 1998 Taylor 1994). Among the factors widely cited as influencing consumers' perceptions of waiting are service, facility, and customer characteristics perceived fair- ness of the wait and information provided by the firm. Aspects of a service that are believed to affect consumers include its value and importance and whether it can be obtained elsewhere or at another time (Katz, Larson, and Lar- son 1991 Maister 1985). In necessary services, consumers have limited control and cannot "balk" (Cannon, Shanthiku- mar, and Carmon 1995). The stage of a service encounter (preprocess, in-process, postprocess) during which the delay occurs also can influence affective response. Service stage is argued to be influential relative to its distance to the con- sumer's goal for the service encounter (Dube-Rioux, Schmitt, and Leclerc 1989 Hui, Thakor, and Gill 1998). Preprocess waits are theorized to feel longer and be more unpleasant for consumers than in-process waits (Larson 1987 Maister 1985 Taylor 1994). Facility characteristics such as location, attrac- tiveness, and the presence of distractions to occupy customer time are proposed to affect consumers' perceptions, though empirical results have been mixed (Baker and Cameron 1996 Davis and Vollmann 1990 Pruyn and Smidts 1998). Consumers' individual differences also influence wait- ing perceptions. Consumers' expectations for the length of a wait are an internal reference that affects the consumers' willingness to accept the wait (Hui and Tse 1996,- Leclerc, Schmitt, and Dube 1995). Expectations vary according to a person's prior experiences with the service firm and its com- petitors (Kumar, Kalwani, and Dada 1997). Other individual difference factors that influence perceptions of waiting include consumers' time orientation and sense of time urgency (Katz, Larson, and Larson 1991 Taylor 1994). The perceived fairness of a wait is believed to be a major influence on consumers' satisfaction (Katz, Larson, and Larson 1991 Maister 1985). Fairness perceptions are influ- enced by attributions of controllability: When consumers believe that a service provider has control over a delay, affect and judgments of fairness and service quality are adversely affected (Folkes, Koletsky, and Graham 1987 Seiders and Berry 1998 Taylor 1994). Seeking to under- stand the links among attribution, fairness, and satisfaction, researchers have examined the effect of offering consumers various types of information about waiting (Folkes, Kolet- sky, and Graham 1987 Taylor 1994). Convenience Orientation Convenience orientation refers to a person's general prefer- ence for convenient goods and services. Anderson (1972) was among the first to examine convenience-oriented con- sumption, focusing on the use of convenience-oriented food products and appliances. Yale and Venkatesh (1986) identify convenience preference as a distinct consumption strategy, and Morganosky (1986, p. 37) defines a convenience- oriented consumer as one who seeks to "accomplish a task in the shortest time with the least expenditure of human energy." More recent research defines convenience orienta- tion as the value consumers place on goods and services with inherent time- or effort-saving characteristics (Brown 1990 Voli 1998). Researchers agree that convenience orien- tation has a major impact on consumers' buying decisions. Several studies have sought to determine the factors that influence consumers' use of convenient goods and services. Convenience consumption has been operationalized by the use of convenience foods (e.g., frozen expensive entrees, ready-to- eat cold cereal), timesaving durables (e.g., microwave oven, dishwasher, freezer), and paid services (e.g., domestic ser- vices, child care). Total household income has consistently been found to correlate with convenience consumption. Other demographic variables proposed to relate to convenience ori- entation include age, occupation, wife's employment, hours worked per year by husband, residence, family size, stage in family life cycle, education, and socioeconomic status (Ander- son 1971, 1972 Bellante and Foster 1984 Morganosky 1986 Nickols and Fox 1983 Reilly 1982 Soberon-Ferrer and Dardis 1991 Strober and Weinberg 1980). Lifestyle variables considered relevant include time pressure, role overload, emphasis on leisure, hedonism, attention to mental and physi- cal self-improvement, and devotion to work (Berry 1979 Etgar 1978 Fram and DuBrin 1988 Reilly 1982). Many convenience orientation studies have reported inconclusive findings. Demographics believed to be related to time constraints have shown relatively weak and incon- sistent relationships with convenience-oriented behavior (Voli 1998). In addition, problems in operationalizing the dependent variable have been noted (Bellante and Foster 1984 Reilly 1982). Although consumers' willingness to pay for convenience or to sacrifice convenience for a lower price is commonly acknowledged and cost-oriented and Understanding Service Convenience / 3