ABSTRACT

At any particular time, some service processes are performed by employees whereas others are performed by customers, with or without the aid of digital technologies. This chapter proposes a framework describing which technology-enabled service processes will migrate from employee handling to customer handling. Therefore, two situations are considered: (1) a process that is performed by employees in person is digitized to hand off to customers in an IT-enabled format, and (2) a process that has already been digitized for employees requires fewer changes in order to hand off to customers in the form of a self-service technology (SST). From a firm’s point of view, there are a number of issues to consider in making a decision to digitize or virtualize a service process for handoff to customers. These include costs and potential benefits of digitizing, synchronization and process involvement requirements, and consumer sensory and relationship needs. The focus in this chapter is on service processes that are already or will be digitized for use by customers in the form of SSTs. Therefore, the firm’s decision to digitize a service process is considered, but the more important topic is whether the firm should expect the digitized service process to be utilized directly by a service employee or by customers, which depends on the abilities and desires of the target market. Therefore, this chapter suggests a theory regarding service process migration to SSTs.