familiar as the debit card system. The results mirror the conclusions of Langeard, Bateson,
Lovelock, and Eiglier (1981) and Bateson (1985a), and may illustrate that increased desire
for control produces a higher or lower customer motivation to use more frequently a
technology-based delivery option, depending on the degree of familiarity that customers have
with the technology-based options.
Enjoyment with participation contributes positively in explaining telephone-based
channel usage. The level of customer participation, in the presence of alternative delivery
options, derives from the propensity to participate that customers have which, in turn, will
derive from the attractiveness that participating and being involved has to customers
(Langeard et al., 1981; Dabholkar, 1996).
Overall for the technology-based delivery channels, cognitive and affective variables
determined usage. For the branch, usage frequency was only determined by cognitive
influences.
RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS
This research has attempted to clarify how technology infusion in bank delivery channels
affects customers’ perceptions and decisions. It is an exploratory study aimed at revealing the
determinants behind bank channel users’ decisions, namely the usage frequency decision by
delivery channel. The research literature has repeatedly asked for contributions in customer
interaction with technology-based service deliveries (Mick and Fournier, 1998; Steenkamp et
al., 1999; Bitner et al., 2000; Meuter et al., 2000).
The results from this research suggest and confirm that both affective and cognitive
factors determine technology acceptance and usage, contrasting with traditional models that
explain technology acceptance, innovation diffusion and adoption (Gatignon and Robertson,
1985; Davis et al., 1989; Rogers, 1995) only favoring cognitive influences. For the customer,
technology delivery applications can represent positive outcomes, such as convenience, cost,
or time savings. They can also represent disadvantages, such as risk or complexity. All these
factors are cognitively processed by the customer when deciding whether to increase or not
its usage of a bank delivery channel. However, research results illustrate that in all remote
delivery channels (contacts mediated by technology), the frequency of usage was determined
by affective and cognitive variables. The composition of these influences, however, varied
among channels. The results are to be analyzed by channel, with meaningful comparison only
for the broad nature of the variables (cognitive versus affective). This conclusion confirms
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