Self service kiosks and consumer behavior

Robotics and self service kiosks are repeatedly heard terms in today’s world. In her article Gavett (2015) points that many companies nowadays are emerging to offer their products on a self service machine due to the high returns of these electronic facilities. The reason behind the revenue growth is, self service kiosks or applications help to remove the physiological and social embarrassment that many customers try to avoid in their buying process. For instance, it is witnessed that consumers would order less food at a fast food restaurant as to avoid the people judgment on their eating behavior. In contrast when they ordered through a website, the quantity of the food is more and customer satisfaction is higher (Gavett, 2015). But the question is, why are customers caring so much about other people impressions and judgments towards their purchase behavior ?
           In answer to the above question, human beings define them self's by imagining how others would look at them, what impressions their appearances create to the people around them. Sociologist term the above as the "Looking glass self" concept (Sinigaglia & Rizzolatti, 2011). People absorb their personality traits from the culture they live in, the latest trends in the world and new fashion created by marketers. Where each person gets attracted to those traits that match their perceptions and norms. Then consumers illustrate the absorbed attributes by their purchasing behavior, taking into consideration the impressions that their purchases and belongings would create to the public (Solomon, 2012). For example when I went through the process of buying a new car, my main consideration was what will the car speak about my personality, what will the people comment at me when they will witness me riding that car. Thus the above explains why consumers are feeling more comfortable to buy through self service kiosks than to go through face-to-face interactions with shop sellers and appear to the public while buying.

References

Gavett, G. (2015). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from
https://hbr.org/2015/03/how-self-service-kiosks-are-changing-customer-behavior

Solomon, M. R. (2012). Consumer behavior: Buying, Having and being. United States of America: Pearson education.

Sinigaglia, C., & Rizzolatti, G. (2011). Through the looking glass: Self and others. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(1), 64-74.  doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.11.01