Customer satisfaction and SST - How can these two factors come to be? : A quantitative research study on the impact of self service technology on customer satisfaction in the healthcare sector

Sammanfattning: The main purpose of conducting this study is to investigate the effects of factors capturingthe use of SST on attitude towards SST and customer satisfaction in the public healthcaresector. More specifically, the study examines the impact of technology readiness, needfor human interaction, perceived trust, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use onattitude towards SST and customer satisfaction. The study explores the website of 1177Vårdguiden, and is thus conducted in the context of the healthcare sector. Given thispurpose, our research question is:What kind of effects do the factors capturing the use of SST have on attitude towards SSTand customer satisfaction in the context of public healthcare?The study was conducted by focusing on a specific organization’s website. It is importantto note that the study was not in collaboration with 1177 Vårdguiden, and was strictlyperformed for academic purposes. To investigate the impact of the different factors, aquestionnaire was distributed among respondents who have used 1177 Vårdguiden’swebsite in Västerbotten during the last 12 months. The study primarily contributestheoretically to the TAM model by Davis (1986) and its extension by Elliott et al. (2012).Our model tested the impact of technology readiness, perceived usefulness and perceivedease of use on attitude towards SST, similarly to the extended model by Elliott et al.(2012) but also investigated the additional variables of need for human interaction andperceived trust. In the proposed model, we also added a second dependent variable -customer satisfaction.The data collection method was performed by using a quantitative approach. Thecollected data was analyzed by using the statistical software program Minitab, where weconducted the multiple regression analysis to test the relationships between the variables.The statistical analysis showed that perceived trust, perceived usefulness and perceivedease of use have significant effects on attitude towards SST. Technology readiness,perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have a significant effect on customersatisfaction. We also found that attitude towards SST have a significant effect oncustomer satisfaction.This study provides practical insights for managers regarding SST, especially in thehealthcare sector. The findings of our study can be used to understand which factors ofan SST for customer use that are the most important to work with in order to facilitate apositive attitude towards the SST and higher customer satisfaction.