The design of the mobile service: Fit between mobility and customer variability

Abstract

In the service economy, as markets change from offering physical products to offering services, organizations across many industries must embrace this transformation to remain competitive. Mobile technology plays an important role in this transformation because of characteristics such as mobility. However, high levels of mobility may not always contribute to service performance. Due to customer variability in service encounters, we argue that different customers may prefer different types of mobility design. In this paper, we identify customer variability that affects the quality of the service encounter and try to determine how these factors moderate the performance impacts of mobility in the design of the mobile service. We propose that a fit must be achieved between mobility design and customer variability, in order to increase mobile service performance. The results of this inquiry can guide service providers in developing more attractive mobile services through mobile technology. © 2012 IEEE.