Customer channel choices in retail banking: A test of individual differences for transactional services

With the introduction of self-service in the financial sector there have been made many assumptions about customer behaviour. Both practitioners and researchers have examined and proposed heuristics for distinguishing self-service customers from other customers. In banking this divide is usually made between Internet segments and branch segments (e.g. Mols, 1999). This paper is part of a research project where these assumptions are challenged. First, customers’ channel choices are viewed as dependent upon characteristics of the transaction (or service), characteristics of the channel, characteristics of the customer relationship and individual differences. Second, other self-service channels than the Internet are included. The focus in this paper is to report the results of an analysis on the effect of individual differences on customer channel choice for transactional services. The analysis is based on transaction and customer data from two branch offices of a Swedish bank, and the analysis is focussed on the data available can cast light on factor that influence adoption and use of self-service channels.