Customer Roles in Self-Service Technology Encounters in a Tourism Context

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a study which explored the customer perspective on their roles in SST encounters in a tourism context, through the theoretical lens of service-dominant logic. The study employed short qualitative interviews with airline passengers at an international airport. The findings suggest that customers can assume six roles in an SST encounter which can be viewed as either positive or negative in terms of value creation. Therefore, a key contribution of this paper is the development of a role–experience continuum which depicts the variations in customer experiences of value creation in a tourism context.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-service technologies
• customer roles
• service-dominant logic
• co-creation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Petranka Kelly

Petranka Kelly, Researcher, Dublin Institute of Technology, College of Arts and Tourism, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin 1, Ireland (E-mail: [email protected]).

Jennifer Lawlor

Jennifer Lawlor, PhD, Lecturer in Strategic Management, Dublin Institute of Technology, College of Arts and Tourism, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin 1, Ireland (E-mail:[email protected]).

Michael Mulvey

Michael Mulvey, PhD, Director of Academic Affairs, Dublin Institute of Technology, College of Arts and Tourism, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin 1, Ireland (E-mail: [email protected]).