Challenging Human Interaction in the Delivery of Banking Services

Abstract

Human interaction (between client and provider) is a speical feature of services marketing which is being challenged due to self-service technology, especially in the banking industry. Previous research, however, does not indicate if there are specific banking services which consumers do or do not consider appropriate for self-service technologies. New Zealand is considered by many to be at the state-of-the-art in terms of self-service in banking, and events there could well provide insights into what can be expected in the future in Europe's equally turbulent banking sector. The objective of this research, therefore, was to research the views of New Zealand bank customers and bank experts with regards to what banking services are and are not appropriate for dispensing from self-service technologies. THe research indicated that utilisation of self-service technologies by the mass market will be limited to mundance banking transactions only, while small up-market niches will utilise self-service technologies for the more complicated banking transactions. To a certain extent, the movement of transactions from human bank staff to self-service technologies will free up the time of human bank staff who will become more involved in customer service and selling.