Waiting in Exit-Stage Operations: Expectation for Self-Checkout Systems and Overall Satisfaction

Retailers have installed self-service technologies such as self-checkout that aim to improve the efficiency of checkout operations and minimize customers’ waiting experiences that reduce customer satisfaction. Customers’ expectation for self-checkout should influence their evaluation of checkout operations for existing checkout options when the new service is installed at the checkout. This study investigates how expectations about self-checkout affects perceptions of waiting in terms of social injustice, unattractiveness, and undistraction as well as customer satisfaction when retailers change checkout operations through installing self-service technologies. The results from an online survey in Japan revealed that social injustice has a stronger negative impact on satisfaction when customers have low expectations for self-checkout. In contrast, unattractiveness and undistraction tend to affect satisfaction negatively when expectation is high. This study clarifies the mechanism of how installing self-service technologies influences customer satisfaction with pre-existing services in terms of the psychological factor of waiting.