Sources of Customer Role Learning During Self-Service Technology Encounters

Abstract

The advance of self-service technologies (SSTs) in the tourism industry has highlighted the role of the customer as co-producer during service encounters. Customer usage of SSTs requires that they have acquired the needed skills and knowledge towards operating the SST efficiently. Despite the recognition of the importance of customer role clarity and ability for successful SST encounters, there is a dearth of knowledge into the process of customer SST role learning. Therefore, this research contributes to knowledge by exploring the sources of customer SST role learning and how customers learn from them. The employed research method is short interviews with airline passengers at an international airport. The results identify six sources of customer learning, namely the SST interface, other customers, company employees, mass media and service environment, negative service outcomes and the customer’s workplace.