Purpose

The service recovery literature provides little guidance to firms on how users of self-service technology (SST) perceive assistance provided by human and non-human service agents following a service obstacle. This research responds by addressing two important research questions about SST recovery: (1) how are perceptions of assistance provided following a service obstacle influenced by a customer's psychological needs? and (2) does supporting the psychological needs of customers positively impact continuance intentions following a service obstacle?

Design/methodology/approach

Data are collected to address the research questions via five experiments that explore how assistance provided by a non-human (vs human vs no assistance) service agent contributes to perceptions of psychological support and continuance intentions following a service obstacle while volitionally using SST.

Findings

The results show that while users of SST would prefer to do so without an obstacle requiring intervention of a service agent, if assistance is required then the psychological need support elicited from a non-human service agent was vital to an effective recovery. Further, the findings highlight some boundary conditions for this relationship, with the impact of customer perceived need support on continuance intentions found to be sensitive to fit between the task and assistance provided and the complexity of the task being completed.

Originality/value

Much of the prior service recovery literature has emphasized the different types of tactics that can be used (e.g. apologizing, monetary compensation and explaining what happened), failing to appreciate the role of different types of service agents or the underlying psychological process that explain the relative merit of such tactics. The present research shows that for these tactics to influence continuance intentions, they must be provided by a relevant service agent and support a customer's psychological need for autonomy, competence and relatedness. The hypothesized impact of psychological need support on continuance intentions was also observed to be contingent upon the fit between the task and the type of assistance provided, where the level of task complexity attenuated this fit.

中文翻译：

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自助技术恢复：心理需求支持的重要性

目的

关于自助服务技术 (SST) 的用户如何看待服务障碍后由人工和非人工服务代理提供的帮助，服务补救文献几乎没有为公司提供指导。本研究的回应是解决关于 SST 恢复的两个重要研究问题：(1) 在服务障碍后受客户心理需求影响的援助感知如何？(2) 支持客户的心理需求是否对服务障碍后的持续意图产生积极影响？

设计/方法/途径

收集数据以通过五个实验解决研究问题，这些实验探讨了非人类（与人类相比，没有援助）服务代理人提供的帮助如何在自愿使用 SST 的同时促进对服务障碍后心理支持和持续意图的感知。

发现

结果表明，虽然 SST 的用户更愿意在没有需要服务代理人干预的障碍的情况下这样做，但如果需要帮助，那么从非人类服务代理人那里获得的心理需求支持对于有效恢复至关重要。此外，研究结果强调了这种关系的一些边界条件，客户感知到的需求支持对持续意图的影响被发现对任务和提供的帮助与所完成任务的复杂性之间的匹配很敏感。

原创性/价值

许多先前的服务补救文献都强调了可以使用的不同类型的策略（例如道歉、金钱补偿和解释发生的事情），未能理解不同类型的服务代理的作用或解释相关问题的潜在心理过程这种战术的优点。目前的研究表明，要使这些策略影响持续意图，它们必须由相关服务代理提供，并支持客户对自主性、能力和相关性的心理需求。还观察到心理需求支持对持续意图的假设影响取决于任务与所提供援助类型之间的匹配度，其中任务的复杂程度削弱了这种匹配度。