The Impact of Cognitive versus Affective Aspects on Consumer Usage of Financial Service Delivery Channels

service operations available in the main delivery channels of the firm. It is not intended to
study the determinants of channel choice, but rather the determinants that explain why, within
a particular delivery channel, users of that channel adopt more or less frequently the channel.
It is considered that the need to perform a banking transaction can be satisfied through more
than one channel: using a specific delivery channel to satisfy that need will also depend on
how the customer relates to that channel (cognitively and affectively).

This research is valuable for managers in a time when the strategic and financial
importance of increasing usage of remote channels is stressed, together with decreasing usage
of channels based on face-to-face interactions (especially for low value-added operations).
Researchers examining the trade-off between ‘high tech’ versus ‘high touch’ channels,
argued that the former are effective for cost reduction and the latter for relationship building
(Heute and Roth, 1988; Apte and Vepsalainen, 1993; Heim and Sinha, 2000; Walker et al.,
2002). Consequently, there is interest in finding out the relevant predictors of usage
frequency for a specific delivery channel. Service delivery channels poorly designed that are
not able to stimulate a desired increase in usage will reflect high costs without reaching the
target audiences. Therefore, this information will increase companies’ effectiveness and
efficiency in addressing different customer profiles, while enhancing usage of technology-
based service deliveries.

Research has been sparse concerning self-service technologies, as the emphasis has
been to study customer behavior in terms of interpersonal interactions. In the literature,
constant calls have been made for further research on technology-based delivery channels
(Steenkamp et al., 1999; Bitner et al., 2000; Eroglu et al., 2000; Meuter et al., 2000;
Henderson and Kunz, 2001). As a result, this study attempts to contribute to a better
understanding of the consumer/company interaction in the presence of remote channels. The
banking industry was chosen to test the proposed relationships, as it is a service industry with
several delivery channels available for the same set of operations and in which there are
constant efforts to transfer low value-added transactions from the branches to the remote
delivery channels.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature streams of marketing and social psychology provide the theoretical background
to the research, in particular the literature pertaining to technology and consumer behavior.

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