Self-service technology in hotel reseption : finnish customer perceptions

Abstract

Services have been the interest of research since the 1960’s. After the 1990’s the development of technology became an interesting research area along with other service research. There are two customer service concepts that this study is discussing. These are traditional human based customer service and self-service technology based customer service. According to earlier studies, high service quality is a result of human interaction where people are seen as the key to company’s success. However, since technology has had its impact on services the overall image has changed companies as well as customers. In the 21st century self-service technology has become a new interest of research.

The purpose of this study is to find out whether Finnish young adults choose to use self-service technology instead of interaction with a receptionist in a hotel reception. Furthermore, purpose of the study is to discover what Finnish young adults want from the customer service nowadays. The research method of this study is a quantitative research with survey method of the primary research. Questionnaire is designed to find out customers’ expectations, experiences and future concept views. The sample was young Finnish adults and the data was collected through online and as a paper version and finally analysed with statistics. Results were positively surprising. Majority of the respondents would use self-service technology (SST) instead of traditional human interaction. However human interaction was also revealed to be the most important aspect of customer service. Therefore, this study suggests that instead of replacing traditional customer service entirely with self-service technology, it would be offered as additional service concept in future receptions.