Margaret Craig-Lees

Technology‐enabled service delivery: An investigation of reasons affecting customer adoption and rejection

The use of technology to enable or facilitate the delivery of services has the potential to benefit customers and service providers alike. Correspondingly, however, the purposes to which technology is put, and the manner in which it is used, also has the potential to disenfranchise customers. Therefore the operational desirability and gains of any employment of technology to facilitate service provision should be balanced against the perceptions and behavioural response of customers. Our research aims to shed light on the reasons why customers adopt or reject technologically facilitated means of service delivery, and to develop a means by which likely adoption or rejection may be predicted. The research we have undertaken to date suggests that adoption or rejection of technologically facilitated services is moderated by the personal capacity and willingness of individuals.

Technology-Enabled Service Delivery: Reconciling Managerial and Customer Perspectives

The use of technology to enable or facilitate the delivery of services can benefit customers and service providers alike. Correspondingly, however, the purposes to which technology is put, and the manner in which it is used, may run the risk of disenfranchising customers. This might be due to technical faults and failings, but also due to situations in which human interaction is substituted or diminished by a use of technology that is more in a service organisation’s interests than in those of its customers.

The brand concept and Australian consumer behaviour texts: a review

Review of books recently published on the topics of the brand concept and consumer behaviour. The review directly refers to the value of the books for marketing students. Highlights three US texts that have been specifically adapted to the Australian market. Asserts that the most extensively discussed brand‐related topic is brand loyalty, but the quality of the discussion varies across the texts. Criticises certain practices, such as the tendency to use terms “brand” and “product” interchangeably and the oversimplication of the brand concept.