SERVICE CHANNEL consumption: REFLECTIONS ON CONVENIENCE

1. SERVICE CHANNEL consumption: REFLECTIONS ON CONVENIENCE Jillian Dawes Farquhar, Professor of Marketing Strategy, Business School, University of Bedfordshire. Professor Jenny Rowley, Manchester Metropolitan University Published in Marketing Theory 9, 4, 1-14 Business School

2. Research aims • To explore ‘convenience’ in a multichannel setting • To consider how existing work contributes to understanding consumer service consumption • To propose a theoretical model of convenience in service consumption Business School

3. Background • Familiar with the term ‘convenience goods’, particularly convenience meals? • What do these goods and services seek to achieve? Whose time, whose effort? • Convenience is related to the time and effort that consumers spend in purchasing (Brown 1990; Brown & McEnally 1993) or consuming a product. • Convenience is an attribute that reduces the non-monetary price of a good/service (Kotler & Zaltman 1971). • Effort or energy expenditure is a distinct type of non-monetary cost that influences satisfaction, where effort can be physical, cognitive or emotional. • Two ways of thinking about convenience: • product attribute level • consumer behaviour level (Yale & Venkatesh 1986). Business School

4. Background 2 • Consumer-decision-making model begins to appear (see Table 1). • Idea of a convenience inclination appears frequently – refers to a person’s general preference for convenient good and services (Anderson 1972, Yale and Venkatesh 1986). • Convenience-oriented consumer seeks “to accomplish a task in the shortest time with least expenditure of human energy” (Morganosky 1986:37). • Who doesn’t? Depends on the nature of the convenience and..? • Convenience orientation or consumption influenced by income, age, occupation, time pressure, role etc. • People vary in their perceptions of time scarcity which influences the way that they use their time hence impacting on notions of convenience (Kaufmann-Scarborough and Lindquist 2003). • But consumers may not be convenience-oriented as such and orientation will vary according to influencing factors (Brown & McEnally 1993). Business School

5. Dimensions of convenience • Convenience a multi-dimensional construct of time and effort (at least) • Five dimensions: time, place, acquisition (transaction?), use and execution (Brown 1990) • Five dimensions: decision, access, transaction, benefit, post purchase derived from stages in decision-making (Berry et al, 2002, Seiders et al 2007) • Three dimensions: time, place and execution (Yoon & Kim 2007) Business School

6. Theoretical context of convenience • Empirical model (Seiders et al. 2007) relating to consumer decision-making model SERVCON. 17-item scale. • Partial support from Colwell et al (2008) but access not supported (might be choice of research context) • Personal and situational goals proposed as being related to decisions about convenience (Brown and McEnally 1993, Ratneshwar et al 2001) ongoing Business School

7. Table 1 Mapping the dimensions of convenience Business School

8. Convenience and services • Multi-channel research recent but extensive. Includes goods retailing (Berman & Thelen 2004, Nunes & Cespedes 2003), competition between direct and conventional retailers (Balabsubramanian 1998) and customer profitability across channels in catalogue business (Thomas & Sullivan, Venkatesan et al 2007). • Customer multi-channel service evaluations have had complementary effects on overall satisfaction with service provider (Montoya-Weiss et al 2003) implying that convenience may play a role therein. • Channel usage research indicates importance of grouping customers by demographics, lifestyle and attitudes where again convenience or perceptions of time/effort expenditure may be considered (Black et al 2002, Thornton & White 2001, Wan et al 2005). Business School

9. Convenience and channel choice 2 • Need for convenience is included as a lifestyle variable in buying from a particular channel (Schoenbachler & Gordon 2002) • Instrumental shopping motives increase likelihood of using most convenient (?) channel. Consumers with busy lifestyles will prefer more accessible and convenient channels (Black et al 2002) • Internet and catalogue shopping perceived as time saving but respondents rarely purchased via this channel to save time (Alreck & Settle 2002 • Grocery shoppers found internet channel convenient providing 24 hour access, extensive choice, ease of use and time saving (Ramus & Nielsen 2005). Business School

10. So far • Convenience is widely used in multichannel literature without really agreeing what it is. • Measured with other items such as trust and efficacy (Choudhury & Karahanna 2008) • Measures tend the word ‘convenience’ in the items (e.g. Choudhury & Karahanna 2008) • Danger of confusing the product attribute level with the consumer choice criteria. • Goals appear important in channel choice selection (Balasubramanian et al.2005) eg economic, symbolic Business School

11. Where next? • Exploring further with goals (situational/personal) • Exploring convenience within context of value creation • Empirical work – research Business School

12. THANK YOU! YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS PLEASE? Business School