Is more customer control of services always better?

Purpose – Research on empowerment and service co-production assumed that customers want more control and that more control is better. An empirical test of this assumption, however, is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to test this assumption by not only focussing on the customer’s capacity and opportunity for control, but also taking into account the customer’s desire for control. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses an experiment employing video clips depicting a service encounter in a banking context in which control beliefs are manipulated. Findings – This study shows that more control in services is not always better because individuals vary in their desire for control; that state measures of control are effective predictors of relevant attitudinal and behavioral effects like satisfaction and loyalty, and that the mechanism which produces these effects is the consistency between control beliefs. Research limitations/implications – Future research on customer empowerment and service co-production should acknowledge the pivotal role of variations in desire for control, focus on inconsistencies in control beliefs to predict effects and measure control beliefs as varying states rather than as stable personality traits. Practical implications – Enhancing customer control of a service may primarily mean: giving the customer the option to control or not to control the service. Originality/value – This study contributes to literature and marketing practice by demonstrating that more control may have negative effects and by demonstrating the mechanism by which these effects occur.