Customer involvement in service innovation– a study of the bank industry

Authors: Jimmie Borgqvist, Master Programme Marketing Daniel Lindberg, Master Programme Marketing

Tutor: Sarah Philipsson

Subject: Service Innovation

Level and semester: Advanced level, Spring 2011

Acknowledgement The area of customer involvement in the development of services in the bank industry has

been an interesting subject to study. We would not have come this far without the help of a

few people. We will start off by thanking our tutor Sarah Philipson, who has helped us with

ideas and guided us throughout our thesis. We will also like to thank Marcus Wideroth, Peter

Svensson and Per Kristensson for taking part in our pre study, they gave us information about

the industry, which helped us get valuable insights of how the services are developed today

and possible future development. At last we would like to thank those 300 respondents that

participated in our survey, their contribution made this research possible.

Växjö 2011-05-27

Daniel Lindberg Jimmie Borgqvist

Abstract Thesis; Master Programme, Marketing

Linnæus University, School of Business and Economics in Växjö

Authors: Jimmie Borgqvist & Daniel Lindberg

Tutor: Sarah Philipson

Title: Customer involvement in Service Innovation – a study of the banking industry.

Background/Problem: Services are commodities in most service industries and the

companies are not putting enough into innovation of services to differentiate themselves from

their competitors. Since the services are commodities it does not make the customers

committed to a certain company nor does it make the customer chose the best service, since

they are so much alike. To be able to adapt the services to the customers the companies need

to know what the customers want. This research is proposing that the way to find out what the

customers want is through customer involvement in the service innovation process.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to identify opportunities for service companies to

involve customers in the service innovation process.

Theory: The theoretical framework is built up out of the concept of customer involvement in

service innovation, which is a research area that has been put aside for customer involvement

for product innovation. Despite this the area has some interesting articles and this research is

built up around Alam’s (2002) model of customer involvement.

Research question: What preferences do customers have when interacting in service

development and what kind of involvement is best suited for their needs?

Method: The empirical study of the research was performed through a pre-study with semi-

structured telephone interviews and the actual study consisted of internet surveys. The

telephone interviews were conducted with three experts in the area of customer involvement

in service innovation and the banking industry. The surveys had 300 responses within the

sample of the study. The sample consisted of Swedish bank customers in the ages of 18 to 25.

Conclusion: Customers wants communication methods which are not involving face-to-face

interaction. Instead they prefer mobile applications, social networks and the internet bank.

Customers prefer to innovate together with other customers and employees of the bank.

Tableofcontent1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 2

1.2 Problem discussion........................................................................................................... 2

1.3 Purpose ............................................................................................................................. 3

2. Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................................... 4

2.1 New service development vs. new product development ................................................ 4

2.2 Key factors of user involvement ...................................................................................... 5

2.3 Overall view of the theory.............................................................................................. 14

2.4 Theory discussion........................................................................................................... 15

2.5 Theoretical Model .......................................................................................................... 16

2.6 State of the art ................................................................................................................ 17

2.7 Research Question.......................................................................................................... 17

3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 18

3.1 Research design.............................................................................................................. 18

3.2 Population/Sample ......................................................................................................... 20

3.3 Operationalization .......................................................................................................... 22

3.4 Validity........................................................................................................................... 25

3.5 Reliability ....................................................................................................................... 25

4. Empirical data ...................................................................................................................... 27

4.1 Pre-study......................................................................................................................... 27

4.2 Cross tabulations ............................................................................................................ 28

4.3 Descriptive statistics....................................................................................................... 32

4.4 Regression analyzes ....................................................................................................... 33

5. Analysis................................................................................................................................ 40

5.1 Purpose/objective of involvement.................................................................................. 40

5.2 Stages of involvement .................................................................................................... 41

5.3 Intensity of involvement................................................................................................. 43

5.4 Modes of involvement.................................................................................................... 44

6. Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 48

7. Reflections............................................................................................................................ 49

8. Further research.................................................................................................................... 49

9. References ............................................................................................................................ 50

Appendix 1. Coding model ...................................................................................................... 54

Appendix 2. Interview guideline pre-study: semi-structured interviews ................................. 56

Appendix 3. Crosstabulations .................................................................................................. 57

Appendix 4. Deskriptive statistics............................................................................................ 66

Appendix 5. Frequency Table .................................................................................................. 69

1. Introduction

This chapter explains the introduction of the paper. It starts off with an introduction to the

research area, continues with the background of the research and the problem discussion and

it ends with the purpose of the paper.

The service sector in developing countries has become the most important factor in national

economics. The sector is currently providing a larger turnover than the industrial sector, e.g.

70 percent of the gross margin in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

(OECD) countries. In European countries two thirds of the working force is employed in the

service sector and the contribution to economic growth is the highest of all sectors (Jiménez-

Zarco et al, 2011). Most of the countries with a high income today are post industrialized,

meaning that they are becoming less reliant on industry and more reliant towards services.

This development brings with it less demand for natural capital and more for human capital,

which results in a higher demand for educated workers and less pressure on the countries

national resources and the global environment (www.worldbank.org, 2009).

The number of service businesses is not the only thing that has changed over the years. The

services process it selves has changed, especially since computers and internet made its

entrance into service firms. The consequences of this new technology were that many service

firms lost their face-to-face interaction with their customers. In early days service companies

had a close relationship with their customers; personnel knew their customers individually

and knew exactly how to satisfy their needs, which created loyal customers. However as soon

as mass marketing and buying behavior were on the rise a close relationship was not as

important for the customers as a low price. This resulted in the reducing of variety in service

offerings (Pepperd, 2000). Nowadays companies have learned to take advantage of the new

technology and to communicate with its customers, enabling companies to offer both low

prices and a variety of personalized services. Presently these information and communication

technologies have made it possible for the service sector to obtain and store knowledge about

customers, making it easier to satisfy their needs and to develop new services according to

their preferences (Chesbrough & Spohre 2006).

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1.1 Background

Innovation in Service companies is a very important activity, but until recent times there were

not much innovation activities going on in service companies (Jiménez-Zarco et al, 2011). In

this paper the concepts innovation and service development are not separated as well as

customers and users are used interchangeably throughout the paper, meaning the same people.

The innovation activity is very hard to measure and to recognize. The main reasons for this

are the intangibility of services making it difficult to know the exact performance of a service

and its special characteristics. Other reasons are that it cannot be stored in warehouses for

later use making the interaction between the service and its users constant and highly

influential (Jiménez-Zarco et al, 2011). User innovation was introduced by von Hippel

(1986); his concept was based on that the end user were responsible for a large part of new

product and service innovations.

Matthing et al (2004 pp. 487) defines the process of customer involvement as following:

“Customer involvement is the processes, deeds and interactions where a service provider

collaborates with current (or potential) customers to learn about the market and alter

organizational behavior”. Magnusson et al. (2003) state that; for service companies, to be

competitive in a market the single most important factor is a successful development of

innovative services. They continue by stating that it is crucial that these services are in line

with customer’s value preferences and their needs and wants. Because of the availability of

today’s technology and the continuously increasing demand from customers, services are

getting closer to commodities. A commodity market is offering very standardized

products/services and in these markets is it hard to achieve competitive advantage (Knutsson

et al 2011).

1.2 Problem discussion

According to Levesque & Macdougall, (1996) Service companies has a problem with

differentiating their offerings in commodity markets, services are highly imitable which

competitors are taking advantage of. This has lead to that many companies are focusing their

strategy on customer satisfaction, loyalty and the quality of the services instead of innovating

new ones, which have made the services offered in the industry very standardized. The

standardization of the services has made the companies vulnerable to any changes in their

business landscape (Levesque & Macdougall, 1996).

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In general there are no special departments in service firms which are focusing on innovation

of services; service innovation is something that happens frequently in the service delivery

process. The sources of innovation steams from the companies’ strategies of satisfying their

current customers and keeping them loyal, but also from commerce activities and market

demand (Chen & Lu, 2007). Traditionally the service provider has been the most logical

innovator, services has been developed for the customer instead of with the customer. The

reason for this lies in the financial incentives and that knowledge and capability to get a

diffusion of the innovation is perceived higher for manufacturer than user innovators (Von

Hippel 2001). Despite this von Hippel (2001) argues that studies have shown that user-lead

innovations can compete with commercial manufacturer’s innovation. He continues by

claiming that the conditions are that there have to be an interest from the companies to

embrace the customers’ knowledge and customers being willing to share their experiences

freely.

Customer’s behavior, competence and attitude all have an effect on the innovation,

throughout the whole process. As they interact they are customizing the offerings, making

every step of the innovation process important for service innovators (Chen & Lu, 2007). The

Information the users involved is sharing is not up to date for all eternity. Behavior, attitudes

and habits of customers changes over time, which results in that if companies want to engage

their customers the companies have to be through a process of several engagements over time

(Von Hippel, 2001). The problem for service industry companies is how they could involve

customers in the innovation process not only for the reason of increasing the loyalty or

satisfaction but also to become differentiated from other companies and to be more attractive.

1.3 Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to identify opportunities for service companies to involve

customers in the service innovation process.

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2. Theoretical Framework

This chapter explains the theoretical framework of the research. It starts off with a

description of the differences between new service development and new product

development. Then it proceeds with the key factors of user involvement in innovation, a

theoretical overview and ends with a theory discussion a theoretical model, state of the art

and the research question of the paper.

2.1 New service development vs. new product development

New service development, NSD, do not have a long history. Innovation has mostly been

associated with tangible products, making NSD a fairly unexplored area. Whether to

distinguish NSD from new product development, NPD, or not is something that is crucial to

discuss and many argue that the literature of NPD does not cover the complexity, intangibility

and heterogeneity of NSD (Alam & Perry, 2002). One major difference seems to be the

importance and involvement of the customer in the processes. The role of the customer’s is

more important in NSD. Therefore the usage of NPD models in NSD is debatable (Matthing

et al. 2004). The involvement of customers in services involves a longer and more intimate

relationship, not only through a purchase but through the whole consumption process, making

the user’s knowledge and experiences more important for service companies than tangible

product companies. This creates major challenges for Service companies because new

services must be more responsive to customers’ needs (Alam & Perry, 2002).

To get the customer involved is by itself not an easy task. Nambisian (2002) stress the

difficulty in identifying appropriate customers and giving them the right incentive for their

participation and sharing their knowledge. Magnusson, et al (2003) claims through his

research that past literature about NPD cannot be transferred and used in a NSD context,

because of major differences between NPD and NSD. Therefore user involvement in NSD

needs to be clearly defined. Further on he states that the definition and model of Alam (2002)

is a good start for the research of the area.

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2.2 Key factors of user involvement

The theoretical research in the area of customer involvement is mostly focused on product

development and innovation rather than the development of services (Alam, 2002). However,

Alam developed a framework that contained four different key factors for describing different

sorts of user involvement (Magnusson, 2003).

Alam’s (2002) key factors are:

- Purpose/ objective of customer involvement.

- Stages of involvement.

- Intensity of involvement.

- Modes of involvement.

The first key factor, which is the purpose/objective of the customer involvement, refers to

why the company should involve the customers in their service innovation. The objectives

could be to improve the relationships with the users, reduce the innovation time or to gain

new ideas from the customers. He continues by stating that the second key factor, which is the

stages of involvement, highlights where in the process of the service innovation the customers

are involved. The third key factor of customer involvement, which is the intensity of the

customer involvement, of course refers to how involved the customers are in the innovation

process. The fourth and final factor of the customer involvement is the modes in which they

are involved. The modes could for example be focus groups, face-to-face interviews,

brainstorming etcetera (Alam 2002).

The four key factors described above have set the structure of the theoretical framework of

this research. The factors are used as headings and are also the main parts from which the

theories are discussed.

Factor one: the purpose/objective of customer involvement

To be able to innovate new services there are two main issues; the service companies need to

know how to innovate but also what to innovate. Therefore it would be a major advantage for

the company if they knew what the customers really need. With the help of that knowledge

the company could develop a suitable method of developing the ideas (Lundqvist & Yakhlef,

2004). The companies could use the customers in this process, not only for creating new ideas

for services but also in the rest of the innovating process. The customers could help with the

creation, the testing of the product as well as offering support to the end users (Nambisian,

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2002). One of the main reasons for involving customers is to get hold of information about the

user’s latent needs (Matthing et al, 2004).

The latent needs are the values of the service or what they truly need but they have not

realized it themselves and have therefore not experienced it or requested it (Senge, 1990).

Since they do not request these services the companies and the developers within them cannot

get access to that information (Matthing et al 2004). Von Hippel (1994) argue that the

knowledge of user needs is tacit, which makes it difficult to transfer the knowledge from the

customers to another actor. Therefore, the users have exclusive access to the knowledge in

question. This could explain why it was users who developed the radical new ideas and not

the manufacturers in a study performed by Lettl (2007). Moreover, it is not sufficient enough

to simply ask the customers for ideas; they have to be further involved (Magnusson et al,

2003). Therefore, if the service companies have an active strategy, which contributes to the

involvement of customers early and intensively; they are gaining a greater knowledge about

the customers and reduce the risk of being imitated by other companies by being on the

cutting edge of their business area (Alam & Perry, 2002).

Ulwick (2002) state that the customers only have opinions on what they have experienced and

cannot reflect on the using of emerging technologies. Furthermore, Prahalad & Ramaswamy

(2000) argue that the customer’s role in the service innovation process is to share their

knowledge, contribute with their skills and experiences but also to inform the company about

his or her frustrations, problems, requirements and expectations. Furthermore; they state that

the customers have to be ready to learn and experiment within the innovation process. Alam

(2002) states that because of the structural changes in the service sector; there is a need to

constantly create and develop new services which are suitable for the users in the industry.

Furthermore he argues that; those services have to reach the market at the right time and to

reach these objectives; the customer involvement is an important factor for the companies to

reflect upon.

Moreover, the collaboration between the users and suppliers could be beneficial for the

company, because it can create a mutual understanding of the customer’s wishes and needs.

Furthermore, it could create an understanding of the technological opportunities for the two

actors. (Sinkula, 1994) Magnusson et al. (2003) agree with this stating that the ideas of the

involved customers can be used for learning more about the customer and understanding their

needs better. Matthing et al (2004) state that in service innovation; customer involvement can,

if it is managed correctly, hold valuable information about the customers and it has a good

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effect on the innovativeness of the ideas. Furthermore, Alam and Perry (2002) state that

customer involvement could reinforce the public relations, which hopefully from the

companies’ point of view will increase the loyalty of the customers as well as; help the

company maintain their relationships with the users for a long time. Another advantage of

customer involvement is that the development cycle in some cases gets shortened if an

ongoing customer testing is used during the development (Gupta & Wilemon, 1990). Alam

(2006) and Alam & Perry (2002) also highlight the shortening of the development cycle,

which can results from customer involvement.

Wind & Mahajan (1997) argue that a shortened development cycle is not an advantage in all

cases because sometimes the companies develop products with low quality or just incremental

innovations if the development cycle is shorter. However Alam (2006) highlights that this

might just concern product development and not be applicable for service innovations. He

claims that if the companies collaborate with the customers in the front-end stages to create a

faster cycle in new service development the firms can become first-movers which are

developing pioneering innovations.

Sawhney & Prandelli (2000) argue that with the new technology it is time to change the

perspective to a view where the customer and the company create knowledge together instead

of the company merely exploiting the customer. Moreover, McQuarrie & McIntyre (1986)

argue that the users do not normally take part in the first phases of the creating of new

innovative ideas, because the companies do not trust them in that area. They continue by

stating that these phases are solely controlled by the professional designers of the company

and users are not involved before the testing and evaluation of those ideas, where the

customers are part of focus groups or some other form of testing. This despite that Magnusson

et al. (2003) argue that the user’s ideas are more original and user friendly than the designer’s.

The backside according to them is that the products are less producible. Furthermore, they

state that with the help of the customer’s ideas the professionals can create new services and

that the ideas also can be used as an inspiration for the designers.

Alam & Perry (2002) argues that other advantages with customer involvement is that it can

generate better and more differentiated services which are better suited for the customer’s

wants and needs. They also state that user involvement can help the company educate the

customers in using the new services as well as help the firm with the diffusion of the services,

which can make the new innovations gain acceptance in the market faster. Furthermore, there

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are different objectives of the customer involvement depending on which types of innovations

the companies want to create (Lettl, 2007).

Factor two: the stages of innovation

Alam (2002) has derived 10 different stages where users are involved in NSD: (1) strategic

planning, (2) idea generation, (3) idea screening, (4) business analysis, (5) formation of the

functional team, (6) service and process design, (7) personnel training, (8) service testing and

service run, (9) test marketing and (10) commercialization. Lettl (2007) stresses that to

develop radical innovations a service company is dependent on technological and market

related capabilities. One of the most important capabilities, which the companies can gain

from the market, is the ability to involve the right users at the right time in the right form. The

key factor is to identify which users that can contribute in which stages of the innovation

process. Thereafter be able to establish a systematical way of finding and communicate with

them in an effective way. Alam (2002) stresses although all steps are contributing for the

development, the three first steps are more important when it comes to user input, this because

the large number of new service ideas that needs to be generated. Further on user input in

service and process design is also important because the development of differentiated and

unique services. Alam & Perry (2002) adds that a constant flow of new service ideas are

necessary to be successful, therefore the user should be involved in the innovation process as

early as possible.

Alam (2006) describes that the first stages of the innovation process are in some contexts

called the fuzzy front end of the process. The fuzziness comes from the imprecise and

pragmatic decision processes that come into action in service innovation. These stages are

important because they are the most information intensive and obtain the largest potential for

possibilities of improvement. User involvement in the early stages are significantly

influencing the performance of the service, the inseparability nature of services makes it even

more important to involve users, this if the service is aimed to be differentiated from the rival

companies’ services (Alam, 2006).

Magnusson et al (2003) focused his research on the idea generation stage and how users

could come up with new service innovation ideas. The result showed that if users in this stage

got a consultancy from a professional about underlying technology behind a service the ideas

were more realistic and easier to commercialize, than if the users where unfamiliar with the

capability of the technology, however this consultancy did have a negative effect on the

originality of the users ideas. Customer’s knowledge can not only be implemented in the start

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of an innovation process. Nambisian (2002) stress their importance in co-creating innovations

in the later stages, e.g. testing services and providing end support. He continues expressing

the user’s role in testing and giving support to new services. One successful case of involving

users in the later stages comes from the software industry were the use of beta services

reduces the risks and investments for companies. If the users are capable of identifying

unappreciated features or features of interest which not are applied, companies can reduce

development costs and by involving different set of users a better understanding about

different kinds of needs can be acquired (Nambisian 2002). Later research in the area goes

more deeply into the user’s exposure to new service innovations. Zolfagharian & Paswan

(2010) states that a user which is exposed to a new service goes through a number of stages:

(1) perceptual and evaluative processes for goal setting, (2) emotional acceptance and

resistance, (3) coping responses and (4) adopting decision. The first stage gives indices to

how much service attributes are different from a competing service and how they are

compared. While the other stages deal with to what degree the user has control over the new

process and how the users learn to adapt to new features (Zolfagharian & Paswan, 2010).

Alam (2006) states that to get the most accurate information, specific goals for the interaction

needs to be set for each stage of the innovation process. Aiming to wide with user

involvement will only lead to a fumbling in the dark for answers, user involvement should be

dealt with the simplest way possible and solve specific problems.

Factor three: the intensity of involvement

To what extent and how much influence users should have in the innovation process is a

contradictory matter. Lundqvist & Yakhlef (2004) stresses that service companies should try

to involve their users into the process as fully legitimate actors, both when it comes to

defining the meaning of services and the development of new ideas. Some authors agree with

this need of a high intensity of user involvement. Nambisian (2002) says that firms, to get

most out of the user’s competence, need to involve them to that extent that they are

considered employees. They need to be brought inside the organization and be granted a

recognized voice to achieve the largest effect. Nambisian (2002) continues with saying that

this process of interaction between the company and the customer also means a

transformation of the user to a collective actor. Lettl (2007) states that early research on the

intensity of involvement showed that users had a passive role in the innovation process,

because of this Lettl (2007) focused his research on how suitable users can have a more active

part in the process. He continues by explaining that both active and passive users can be

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problematic to handle, especially to identify these and to know if they are capable in

contributing in a creative and innovative way. Further on he discussed on what interaction

level a firm needs to engage the target user. This depends on the purpose of the interaction but

for new innovations a face-to-face meeting with the user is the best alternative.

Matthing et al. (2004) discuss the customer interactions and defines an active customer as one

who in one way or another interacts with service personnel, the service script and supporting

tangibles. He continues by saying that the interaction is the centre of a market oriented

strategy, making the relationship with the customer highly important. Nambisian (2002) states

that interaction with customers can be costly and time consuming, therefore is it important

that the interaction is overviewed and governed. The benefits of which a company gains from

the interaction must outweigh the cost of man hour and support put in by the service firm.

Matthing et al. (2004) stresses that if service innovation is to be better over time, with help of

customers, a relationship must first be established. This will reduce costs and make it easier to

attract the customers of interest in developing the services. Creating this relationship with

customers are somewhat in line with Lundkvist & Yakhlef (2004) thoughts of involving

customers as fully legitimate actors, a coherent believe among these seems to be that the

intensity of customer involvement needs to be frequent and integrated within the companies’

“walls” to get the best and as much information from the customers as possible.

Alam (2006) also discusses the issue of relationship with users. He adds that interacting with

a fairly new user could create a conflict of interests because of lack in mutual trust. However,

he presents a negative aspect to interacting with loyal customers that already has a

relationship with the firm. This group is motivated but seems unable to provide rich and

diverse information. Information about service innovation could be sensitive for service

companies. Therefore, companies prefer working with customers they know to not risk that

new development information will reach to competitors. Alam (2006) continues by stating

that the major problems are identifying appropriate users and the lack of commitment and

cooperation among these users. Many customers are expecting something tangible in return

when giving ideas or taking part in surveys, therefore if there is no incitement they might not

commit to fully to the assignment. Moreover, he is stressing the risk of involving the

customers too much, which can result in too customized services. The best way is to focus on

a few ideas and development projects and involving the users in the different stages.

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Factor four: the modes of involvement

Nambisian (2002) states that; firms are dealing with three big challenges when using customer

involvement in innovation. The three different challenges consist of the problems to find

appropriate customers to involve, finding the right incentives to make the customers willing to

contribute and finally to capture the knowledge of the customer. It is the third and final

challenge which deals with the modes of involvement. Lettl (2007) states that; it is important

for the companies to find the right forms, in which to involve the customers. Modes of

involvement deals with; how the companies can gain information and knowledge from the

customers. There are several ways of doing this i.e. brainstorming, focus groups and face-to-

face interviews, where face-to-face interaction is considered having several positive effects

compared to non-interaction. (Magnusson et al., 2003) Furthermore Alam (2002) identifies

user visits and meetings, user’s observation and feedback, phone communication and email

communication as other ways to perform customer involvement in the innovation process.

Of course the modes of involvement are affected by the level of intensity the involvement has,

i.e. a survey is one sort of low intensity mode while co-creation is much higher in intensity.

Sinkula (1994) argue that collaboration between users and suppliers could lead to a mutual

understanding of the needs of the users. Therefore a mode with higher involvement might be

more appropriate, than for example just handing out surveys. The low intensity modes should

not be considered useless though, since Magnusson et al. (2003) regard the ideas of the users

as a source of inspiration for the company and the ideas could be a fresh injection in the

companies’ creative veins. However, Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2000) claims that users have

the possibility to be involved during the development continually, by coming up with

suggestions.

Another view of what is the best mode is Andreassen & Streukens’ (2009), which believe in

the listening of online discussions as a form of involving the customers. The mode might not

seem to be a traditional way of looking at customer involvement but they state that by having

a proactive approach to the online discussions the customer’s ideas are involved in the

innovation process and give the companies a substantial amount of feedback. Prahalad &

Ramaswamy (2000) agrees with this to some extent by stating that the customer should be

observed in their own environment more often; making interviews a less appropriate

alternative. The online listening might not be an observation but the discussions are generated

by experiences the customers have in their own environment. Matthing et al (2004) also state

that the involvement of the customers should be in a form where the customers are generating

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ideas in their own environment. They propose that this should be done by letting the

customers invent themselves and thereby discover the customer’s latent needs. However, they

realize that that mode of involvement could interfere with the current company structure.

Lundqvist & Yakhlef (2004) state that if the companies want to involve the customers in their

organization they have to look at them as fully legitimate actors, which can be actively

involved in the innovation of new services and come up with changes to the innovations.

Nambisian (2002) agree with this when stating that if the companies want to involve the

customers; they have to make them part of the development team or even see them as

employees’ of the company. Slater & Olson (2001) states that market-oriented companies

does not involve the customers enough and that they often are satisfied by using verbal

techniques for gathering customer knowledge such as surveys or focus groups instead of

making them an integral part of the development process. Matthing et al (2004) argues the

development of a cross-functional development process, which includes engineers, marketers,

behaviorists and the involved customers instead of just engineers.

Lettl (2007) states that to find the right mode of involvement the companies have to consider

how many users they should involve in the innovation process and not solely focus on the

level of interaction with the customers. Another factor the companies have to consider is what

time frame is appropriate for the customer involvement. Regarding the choice of mode of

involvement Mathing & Sanden (2004) states that the result of their study, which made the

customers innovate in their own environment, could never been achieved by an interview.

Von Hippel (1994) agrees with this by stating that a deeper understanding of user needs is

tacit, which makes it very difficult to transfer to other actors. Lettl (2007) believes that this

might be the reason why users are developing much more radical ideas than the

manufacturing companies. Magnusson et al. (2003) argues that to come up with new

innovations it is not enough to merely ask the customers for ideas, because in that case they

would most likely just come up with ideas that are already known to the companies. He

believes in going one step further and to involve them more in the process.

As an extension to this idea Nambisian (2002) believes that customers could be a part of not

just the idea generation process but in co-creating the innovations with the companies, testing

the innovations and finally providing support for the end user. With the help of tool kits it

would be easier to get help from the users in the innovating process. Tool kits for user

innovation are an alternative, which is emerging. This idea means that the manufacturers do

not need to have a deep understanding of the user needs to be able to produce services which

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are satisfying the user’s needs, because the users are coming up with the innovations

themselves. The objective of the tool kits is to make the users handle the need-related

innovation tasks, since they are more familiar with their needs and then let the companies deal

with the solution-related innovation tasks, since the manufacturer are more familiar with how

to solve and manufacture the innovation. (Von Hippel & Katz, 2002)

Von Hippel & Katz (2002) state that; the tool kit approach is complementary to the lead user

approach, where the companies are trying to find the customers who buy the cutting edge

services or products and get information about their needs. Alam (2006) argue that the lead

user approach assumes that the average user has a hard time judging or coming up with new

innovations since they are so far away from them in their real life. One question remains in

the approach of letting customers create new innovations. Magnusson et al. (2003) face this

dilemma in their study; should the companies give the customers any consultation in their

process? The study shows that users created more original ideas themselves, while the ideas

became more producible with the help of consultation. However the theories, of the most

effective way to involve the customers, differ and Alam (2002) states that interviews and

meetings with the customers are the most dominate ways of doing this, while phone and mail

communication and focus groups are the least used. Furthermore, he states that the different

methods can be used in different stages of the innovation process.

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2.3 Overall view of the theory

Fig.1 Theory overview

14

2.4 Theory discussion

The theories suggest many purposes, modes, stages and the intensity of user involvement in

service innovation. Studies have been made on solutions best suited for the companies’ needs

and goals, not mentioning the needs and preferences that users have on when and how this

interaction should take place. Since the theories are positive about the advantages of user

involvement, we see no reason not to involve them and let them have an opinion in what way

they are most comfortable and effective in supporting the company. Theories are describing

difficulties in the user involvement; identifying the right consumers to take part in different

activities and overcoming a lack of commitment (Alam 2006). Alam (2006) also says that

lack of trust can result in conflicts between the user and the company. Nambisian (2002) adds

that the process of involving the user can be costly and time consuming. This reveals a

problematic area which could be understood better if the needs of the consumers are revealed.

The following model explains the connections between the different areas of the customer

involvement in service innovation, this to explain how they interact and are affected by each

other.

15

2.5 Theoretical Model

Fig. 2 Theoretical connections, based on Alam (2002)

1. If the customer involvement has no purpose there it is meaningless to involve them. The purpose has to be clearly defined to not lose track of why they are involving the customers.

2. The intensity is influenced by the purpose of the involvement. If the purpose is hard to achieve by just asking them questions, perhaps they need to be involved more.

3. The intensity does influence the mode of involvement to choose; companies can choose highly or less intense involvement.

4. The purpose of the involvement also affects what stages of the service innovation process the customers should be involved in. The purpose might just concern some of the stages.

5. The intensity of involvement can affect the stages in which the customers are involved in, since some stages might require a more active involvement than others.

6. The stages of involvement partly determine the mode of involvement the companies should choose, since some modes might be better in some stages.

7. The modes of involvement are affected by the purpose of the involvement. The mode must be suitable for reaching the purpose of the involvement.

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2.6 State of the art

The theory covers the area of user involvement in service innovation. This area is fairly new

and as far as our literature review extended, we conclude that no theories that only deal with

user involvement in service innovation have been validated to the extent that it could be called

dominant. Alam (2002) did however set a new tone with the study over user input in different

stages of service innovation excluding any theory from product innovation. Alam (2006)

continued in the same line, but focused on the first stages of the innovation process, although

none of these can be considered empirically validated.

Magnusson (2003) and Magnusson et al (2003) enhanced the understanding of the quality of

ideas generated by users in focus groups, in comparison to professional developers or if they

received help from professionals. This was also studied by Matthing et al (2004), whom

confirmed that user’s ideas are more innovative in terms of originality and user value than

professionals. Lettl (2007) confirmed what all the previous studies had stated, the fact that

user involvement will have a positive effect on service innovation in some way or another,

however what Lettl (2007) did different was that he distinguished active and passive users.

None of the theories of user involvement in service innovation is empirically validated. We

found no research about customer preferences regarding user involvement; therefore we

consider it to be a gap.

2.7 Research Question

What preferences do customers have when interacting in service development and what kind

of involvement is best suited for their needs?

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3. Methodology

This chapter explains the methodology of the paper. It starts off with the research design of

the research, continues with the population/sample and operationalization. Finally, there is a

presentation of the study’s validity and reliability.

3.1 Research design

This is a qualitative research, which Bryman & Bell (2005) argue is often conducted to

generate new theories. They state that qualitative research finds answers to questions on how

and why something is performed in a certain way. The difference between quantitative and

qualitative research is that the quantitative method often focuses testing theories, looking for

correlations and collecting numerical data, rather than gaining a deeper understanding of a

subject. (Bryman & Bell, 2005) The qualitative method is more appropriate for this study,

since the research is focused on new opportunities rather than collecting numerical data about

the current situation.

Pre-study

The possibilities of collecting data in a qualitative research are many; however this research

uses semi-structured interviews for a pre-study, which was performed to determine different

possibilities that later was used in a customer survey. The preparation for the interviews was

the creation of an interview guide with the basic questions we were asking. However, a lot of

focus was on asking follow up questions to get as much valid information as possible.

Bryman & Bell (2005) state that the major advantage of semi-structured interviews is

flexibility; to have the opportunity to continually ask follow up questions and propose new

questions as the interview goes on depending on the answers from the respondent.

Furthermore, they highlight that two other kinds of interviewing techniques are available;

structured interviewing and unstructured interviewing.

However, since the objective of the interview was to find ideas to use when creating the

questions for the surveys as well as find answer alternatives for the closed questions, a semi-

structured interview technique was arguably the most appropriate of the three techniques. This

was based on the need of some kind of structure to keep the questions within the framework

of this study combined with the possibility for us to explore the respondents more innovative

and perhaps unexpected answers. The interviews were conducted over telephone, which of

course has some advantages, in the form of convenience, as well as disadvantages. The most

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significant disadvantage is however the lack of personal contact between the interviewer and

the respondent Bryman & Bell (2005).

Customer surveys

The actual study consisted of internets surveys. The surveys the customers answered consisted

solely of closed questions with alternatives. Bryman & Bell (2005) state that surveys are

similar to structured interviews, since the customer answers previously decided questions, but

with a minor difference. Since there is no interviewer in the case of the surveys it is really

important to formulate the questions so that they are easy to understand. Bryman & Bell

(2005) state that the advantages of surveys, compared to structured interviews, are that they

are cheaper than both face-to-face and telephone interviews. Surveys also provide the

possibility to get a lot of data in a short time, since surveys can be answered at the same time

and no appointments has to be made.

Bryman & Bell (2005) continue by claiming that the removal of the interviewer effect and

flexibility for the respondents to answer when they have the time is favorable for the research.

However, they consider the disadvantages with surveys to be that there is often a lower

response rate than in structured interviews, the interviewer cannot help the respondent

interpret the questions, the interviewer cannot ask follow up questions and the researchers

cannot control in which order the customers answers the questions. To receive as relevant

answers from this survey as possible the authors first performed a pre-study. Then the

questions were carefully formulated, to avoid misunderstandings. The authors realize that the

response rate of the surveys might be lower than for example an interview, but the aim was to

push people as much as possible to get them to answer the questions. The main reason why a

survey was chosen was to collect a lot of data in a short period of time.

The survey was performed on the Internet, where the authors created a survey and sent a link

to it to the respondents. Honakker & Carayon (2009) state that the advantages of internet

surveys are that it is easy to reach a large population in a fast manner. This is done at a

reduced cost. They continue by stating that; all of these advantages are generated since the

time it takes to send out the link to the survey or to send out the questions via e-mail is very

short, the e-mails are free to send out and they are delivered immediately. There is also a

reduced error in data entry, which stems from the fact that the information is not put in

manually. It is not possible to answer the internet survey wrong since it is created so that it

cannot be sent in if it is not correctly filled out. This also heightens the quality of the answers.

Another advantage according to Honakker & Carayon (2009) is that the Internet surveys are

19

more flexible and easier to administrate, which depends on that the surveys are just

formulated and then sent out, the surveys can be filled out where or when the respondent

wants, as long as there is an internet connection available. However, Honakker & Carayon

(2009) also state that there are some disadvantages; there might be a coverage error or a

sampling error, since everyone is not an internet user. However, this research assumes that the

internet usage of our segment is very high, making this problem a lot smaller. Honakker &

Carayon (2009) states that; a sampling error might occur since only a part of the population is

surveyed although the objective is to generalize the answers to the population. In the case of

this study, finding email addresses to such a large population is a challenge. They claim that

there is large risk of the surveys not getting answered, with this approach. As well as there are

problems with computer security and non-deliverability according to them. This is faced in

this research since some of the email addresses receiving the link to the survey might not be

valid anymore or might be perceived by the user as some sort of spam or virus.

The questions used in the study was theoretically grounded according to the

operationalization chapter, further on, as well as influenced by the pre study conducted with

experts of service innovation and the financial sector. The given answers for the closed

questions were also created through a combination of the information from the theoretical

framework and the empirical pre-study.

3.2 Population/Sample

Pre study

For the interviews the authors contacted people working in the financial sector which are

familiar with service innovation in the bank industry, but also those who are familiar with

customer involved service innovation in general. The selection of these people was done

through an online research of suitable candidates. The criteria were as stated above that they

had knowledge of one of those two areas or both. The online research made sure they met the

criteria. The authors then contacted the selected candidates to arrange a telephone interview.

The results of the selection of candidates were that we got three interviews. Initially five

experts were contacted and three of them had the opportunity to help this research at the time

given.

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The respondents were;

- Marcus Wideroth, Vice President of Business Development at Visab Consulting.

He is a Management Consultant. Moreover, he has had several statements about the

financial market published in newspapers. The company at which he is employed,

Visab Consulting AB, is a consulting firm within business change management,

information management and business solutions.

- Peter Svensson, PhD and Programme Manager of the financial market research

programme at Vinnova, the Swedish governmental agency for innovation systems.

- Per Kristensson, PhD and Associate Professor at Karlstad University. He is currently

conducting his studies on the development of technological services from a

psychological perspective. One of the special areas of the research on Karlstad

University is Service quality.

The authors thought that the titles and accomplishments these people have made them suitable

respondents in our pre-study.

Customer survey

Melzer (2010) states that; in a historical perspective Swedish people rarely change banks, but

as the situation is now more than 50 percent of the people are willing to change banks. The

reason for this is according to him the bad interest rates, lacking in service, high fees and the

unjustified bonuses claimed by the management of the banks. This makes the bank industry

very interesting at the moment. However, Askåker (2006) is arguing that the willingness to

change bank does not coincide with the youth segment, since investigations show that the

youths do not make an active bank choice in a lot of the cases. For example one of these

investigations does according to her show that 49 percent of the customers between 19 and 25

years have the same bank as their parents. Therefore, the banks has to adjust their services to

attract the youth segment and the way this research is proposing the banks to do that is by

involving the customers in the innovation process. Furthermore, the involvement in the

process might itself strengthen the relationship between the customer and the bank. Therefore,

this study is conducted on Swedish bank customers in the ages between 18 and 25 with the

objective of finding out how the customers want the innovation process to be performed. This

segment is the population of the study.

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Since the population was so large and it was very hard to access email-addresses to such a

large group of people, the authors decided to use a convenience sample. Bryman & Bell

(2005) state that; a convenience sample most likely has a higher response rate than a random

sample. However, they also argue that it makes the study harder to generalize. The author’s

assumption is that close to everyone in Sweden has a bank and when looking at the statistics

of people between 18 and 25 at SCB’s (the Swedish Central Statistics Bureau) web page; this

research’s population is over 1 million people (SCB, 2010). Therefore, our sample was

chosen through the author’s selection of a number of people among our acquaintances. The

acquaintances were people in different ages and were living in different cities in Sweden.

These acquaintances were then asked to send the link to the internet survey to their email-

contacts within the segment. For those who did not answer we made sure two reminders were

sent out to their email-addresses at different occasions. The sample became 850 people, which

resulted in 300 responses from people, who were Swedish bank customers in different ages

within the segment.

3.3 Operationalization

This chapter explains the operationalization of the empirical study. The reflections are about

the questions used in the survey. The questions are theoretically grounded as shown in the

discussions of the different questions. The questions are presented in the order they were

asked in the survey. The first one was; how often do you have personal contact with your

bank? By asking this question we aimed to find out the frequency of which customers in the

segment have a personal interaction with the banks. We hoped to see if there was a correlation

with how willing they are to help with service innovation. There are possibly other factors

affected by the frequency of the personal interaction with the banks’ employees, such as how

they want to be involved in the innovation. If personal contact actually encourages customers

to help in the innovation process, it could work as a factor in finding what Nambisian (2002)

states as vital; finding the appropriate users to involve.

The second question was; which bank services do you use today? This second question was

asked to find out how many and what type of services the customers in the segment use.

There might be a correlation between using many or some specific services and the

willingness to help the banks with the innovation. As proposed in the discussion of the last

question this might help banks to choose the right customers to involve. Next, we asked the

question to what degree do you feel you are participating in your bank’s development of new

services?. Since our aim is to identify opportunities for service companies to involve

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customers in the service innovation process this question is meant to provide a view of how

the banks involvement of customers is working now. The alternatives on this question inform

us about the involvement of the customer in the different stages and not just in the innovation

process as a whole. The stages are derived from the ten stages of Alam (2002). The different

levels of customer involvement in the stages should according to Alam (2006) depend on the

company’s goal in that stage. This might justify an attempt to reach a larger customer

involvement in one or more stages as well as settling with a low participation.

The fourth question was; to what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input?

This question is investigating the current state, rather than the customer’s desired state of

customer involvement to find out what could be changed in the customer involvement

process. The question is vital to see how customers feel that the bank handle their input. The

authors suggest that it is of the utmost importance to be receptive of the customers’ input to be

able to have a well functioning customer involvement process. If this process is handled

poorly at the moment, this area could be identified as part of a new opportunity to involve

customers in the innovation process, Lundqvist & Yakhlef (2004); it is a major advantage for

companies to know the needs of the customers. Therefore, it would be really unfortunate for

banks not to manage the information from the customers in a good manner.

The fifth question was; to what degree do you feel you could contribute to your bank’s

innovation process? This question aims at explaining what the customers feel they can

provide in the innovation process. The objective of the question is to find if there is

unexploited capital, which the banks could benefit from by involving the customers. The

question is divided in stages to find if there is any particular step in which the banks could

benefit from customer involvement. Lettl (2007) argues that customers develop more radical

ideas than manufacturers. So by asking customers what they could contribute with we like to

find out if customers consider themselves as holders of valuable information and knowledge,

which may not exist in the companies presently. Magnusson et al. (2003) states that it is not

enough to just ask the customers questions about what the company should do, they have to

be further involved. This question is facing that problem from a customers’ point of view. Do

they consider themselves as important and if it is vital to involve them.

The next question was; what is the minimum reward it would take for you to get involved in

helping your bank in its innovation of new services? This question investigates the

willingness of customers to get involved in service innovation and what the customers would

demand in reward to help the banks innovate. Alam (2002) states that; there is a constant need

23

to develop new (user adapted) services in the service industry. To make the services adapted

to the users the banks have to find the needs of the users, which according to von Hippel &

Katz (2002) should be managed by the users themselves, since they have more need-related

knowledge. Hence, it is very important for the companies to know how to involve customers.

This question should show what the customers want in exchange for performing the need-

related tasks of the innovation process.

The seventh question was; in what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part

of the innovation of your banks new services? By this point the research has established what

the customer involvement in the innovation process looks like now, the willingness to get

involved and what the customers think they could contribute to the process. This question is

therefore aiming at finding out how customers want to manage their part of the innovation

process; specifically how the communication should be performed between the bank and the

customer. This question was asked as one of the factors to determine what Alam (2002) states

as being the mode of innovation. This question is one of the most fundamental questions in

our research, since it partly gives us the opportunity to suggest new ways of involving the

customers in the innovation process. This question will, together with the following question,

give us a glimpse in to how the customer wants to be a part of the innovation process. Von

Hippel (1994) states that; it is very difficult to transfer the tacit needs-related knowledge from

the users to other actors. However, using a good method of transferring the knowledge may

help improving the services, and this question gives the customers opportunity to decide

themselves what mode they think is the best.

The Final question was; how would you prefer to develop your bank’s services? The final

question deals with how customers prefers to deal with the innovation process in the terms of

how many and what kind of people they want to work with. The objective of this question is

to find how customers want to work, which will be a factor for banks deciding how many

customers and how much personnel should be involved in the innovation process. Lettl (2007)

states that to find the right mode of involvement it is not just important to find the level of

interaction, but also how many users to involve. This question should provide us with a

beginning to solve this problem. It might not show how many should be involved, but it

should show how the groups in the innovation process should be assembled; by letting

customers choose if they rather work in group or individually, as well as with or without bank

personnel.

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3.4 Validity

The question regarding the validity is according to Bryman & Bell (2005) if the concepts

stated are the ones that in fact are being studied. Simply; is the research measuring what it

intends to measure? The authors aimed at increasing the validity by creating questions, for

both the pre-study and the survey, which was well founded in the theory. This was made

through a thoroughly performed operationalization. The authors believe that an interview

guideline, which is well founded in theory, is an appropriate attempt to increase the validity.

The pre-study added some expertise to the questions, helping the authors to formulate the

questions and answers to get the answers we aimed to get. The questions had closed answer

alternatives which were controlled by the survey program, making the possibilities to answer

a question in the wrong way much harder. The internet survey was chosen since this study

was trying to reach an overall view of which alternatives the customers preferred, however the

semi-structured interviews of the pre-study was chosen to complement the theoretical view

and gain knowledge about the bank industry and inspiration for the questions and alternatives.

The population was chosen since they according to the news articles presented in the

population/sample chapter are not using their possibilities to make a choice of bank and that

this process might get them to do that. However, the population is quite large so our limited

sample of it might make it harder to generalize to the population. This of course brings down

the validity somewhat.

3.5 Reliability

Bryman & Bell (2008) argue that the reliability indicate the quality of the measuring

instrument of the research. This research was aiming at creating surveys, which would be

answered in the same way by the respondents if they would answer the survey a second time.

The questions were formulated so that they could be easily understood and with the help of

predetermined answer alternatives the authors tried to decrease the risk of the answers varying

if the study was performed a second time. The questions of the semi-structured interviews in

the pre-study could vary from interview to interview, depending on the interviewer effect and

the personal chemistry between the interviewer and the respondent, which of course decreases

the level of reliability. The risk of a question being misunderstood can never be eliminated

even though the authors were trying to make the risk as small as possible. However, the

questions of the survey were formulated in a way that the authors believe should decrease the

likeliness of misinterpretation and since the answers were closed, the reliability of the same

respondents answering the same answer again if the research was repeated are deemed high

25

by the authors. The problem about the survey was that; it was hard to completely control who

got the surveys making a repeat of the research somewhat harder, which decreased the

reliability to some extent. Furthermore, the authors believe that the operationalization made

the interpretation of the results for this study a lot clearer if another researcher tried to repeat

this research.

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4. Empirical data

This chapter explains the empirical study of the research. It starts off with the pre-study and

goes on by explaining cross tabulations and descriptive statistics of the empirical data and

ends with the explaining the regression analyzes of the research.

Firstly; the empirical chapter presents the interviews from the pre-study. Thereafter follows

cross tabulations about what influences the minimum reward it would take for customers to

help their bank with their innovation, in what way the customers would like to communicate

if they are part of the innovation process and how the customers would like to develop their

banks services. The influencing factors measured here are how often the customers have a

personal contact with the bank, what bank services they use, gender, age and education. Cross

tabulations are followed by regression analysis of the variables; how often do you have

personal contact with your bank, age, gender and education in relation to the nine different too

what degree questions about the different stages of development. This is used to find out if

there are any correlations between the different variables and how significant those are.

4.1 Pre-study

Service innovation in banks today has according to our respondents a traditional approach. Its

starts off with that either a core competence in the company used or a need or behavior from

customers is identified. Thereafter different systems are constructed by company developers

(Wideroth 2011). User involvement often takes place at the end of the process to insure that

the company developed a wanted service. There are almost no processes of which users are

involved from the start to the end. The customers are often used in testing the benefits of new

services, if the features are preferable or if its price value (Kristensson 2011). One example of

early involvement comes from the Avanza bank. Avanza have on their website created an idea

board where customers can come up with ideas and then rate and discuss them with each

other (Svensson 2011). From the banks perspective a face-to-face meeting is preferable

because it is very hard to maintain and create a close relationship with customers through

internet or telephone, internet through computers or mobile phones that today are the most

common way of bank and customer interaction (Wideroth 2011). Except from this the

companies mostly involve their customers through surveys about customer satisfaction. It

varies in which stages but in general companies involve them too late in the process

(Svensson 2011). The meeting between customers and banks will continue to be developed

through internet in the future. Users are going to be involved to a higher extent in new service

27

innovation. Users involved will be chosen carefully, only attracting those with high

motivation, certain knowledge or those who will obtain certain gaining’s of participation

(Kristensson 2011). Others think the interaction will occur within the range of mobile devices,

what kind of technological devices this will be are only speculations, some companies are

working together with car companies in finding solution of using cars as a channel of

exchanging information with the customer (Wideroth 2011). The user involvement will rise

to a new level with help of toolkits. With different toolkits users can create their own services

creating an open source of innovations, which will create many new ideas for companies

(Svensson 2011). Customer incentives for participation can in some cases be out of interest

towards the company and the awareness of their own needs (Svensson 2011). Some customers

are engaged in the services because they want better services better suited for their needs and

behavior, for example day traders who want quick access to information. Others do it because

of loyalty to the bank. There are foreign examples of entire helpdesks of volunteer customers

working as support in service firms (Wideroth 2011). For companies to involve customers are

there many incitements. The main one is to reduce the amount of unwanted services that are

developed. Another is to create more radical and innovative ideas for new services. If the

customer is a co-developer he most certainly will become more loyal in the future towards his

bank and to let the personnel met the customers will probably lead to a more market oriented

approach in the long run (Kristensson 2011). Svensson (2011) add the weight on the positive

effects of identifying the customers need. Wideroth (2011) believes that the companies create

a larger innovation power with help of customers. He thinks that customers have a lot to offer

in every stage of the service development process, from idea generation to support. He also

agrees with the previous that a co-development can create more loyal customers, simply

because they will be proud of be a part of the company and the new services.

4.2 Cross tabulations

How often do you have personal contact with your bank? * What is the minimum

reward it would take for you to get involved in helping your bank in its innovation of

new services?

Table 1.1 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of how often the customers have personal contact

with their bank compared to what the minimum reward it would take for them to get involved

in helping their bank in its innovation of new services is. The possible answers for the first

question are: (1) once a year or less, (2) once every sixth months, (3) once or twice a month,

(4) once a week or more. Regarding the question of reward the alternatives are: (1) Cash

28

reward, (2) Other material reward, (3) for the own benefits of customized services, (4) loyalty

to the bank. According to (table 1.1 appendix 3) there is a statistically significant correlation

between the answers to the two questions. People who just have personal contact with the

bank once or twice a year are less likely to help the bank innovate out of loyalty of the bank,

(1,9%) for them who were there once a year and (6,4%) of them who were there twice a year

were willing to help out of loyalty. Out of those who were there once a week or more; (25%)

were willing to help because of loyalty. Furthermore, (48,1%) of those who had personal

contact with the bank once a year or less needed some reward of financial value while only

(37,5%) of the people who were there once a week or more who needed the reward of

financial value. The most responded minimum reward, counting all the respondents, is for the

own benefits of customized services (48, 7%).

How often do you have personal contact with your bank? * In what way would you

prefer to communicate when you are part of the innovation of your banks services?

Table 1.2 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of how often the customers have personal contact

with their bank compared to in what way the customers would prefer to communicate when

they are part of the innovation of their banks services. The possible answers for the first

question are: (1) once a year or less, (2) once every sixth months, (3) once or twice a month,

(4) once a week or more. Regarding the question of way of communication the alternatives

are: (1) Social media, (2) E-mail, (3) Mobile applications, (4) Telephone, (5) Face-to-face, (6)

Bank webpage, (7) Internet bank. According to (table 1.2) there is a statistically significant

correlation between the answers to the two questions. Customers who just have personal

contact with the bank once a year prefer to communicate through the internet bank (32, 1%)

and the customers who have personal contact with the bank every six month prefer to use

social media. The people who have personal contact with the bank once or twice a month

prefer to communicate through telephone (26,9%) and the customers who have personal

contact with the bank once a week or more; they prefer face-to-face interaction (37,5%). The

most responded way of communication, counting all the respondents, is the internet bank (22,

7%).

Gender? * In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services?

Table 2.1 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of which gender the customer has compared to in

what way the customers would prefer to communicate when they are part of the innovation of

their banks services. The possible answers for the first question are: (1) Man, (2) Woman.

29

Regarding the question of way of communication the alternatives are: (1) Social media, (2) E-

mail, (3) Mobile applications, (4) Telephone, (5) Face-to-face, (6) Bank webpage, (7) Internet

bank. According to (table 2.1 appendix 3) there is a statistically significant correlation

between the answers to the two questions. Men are more likely to prefer social media (21,

7%) while women are more likely to prefer telephone (8, 9%) even though there is still a quite

small percentage of women who prefers communication through telephone.

Gender? * How would you prefer to develop your bank’s services?

Table 2.2 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of which gender the customer has compared to

how the customers would prefer to develop their bank’s services. The possible answers for the

first question are: (1) Man, (2) Woman. Regarding the question of how they would like to

develop services the alternatives are: (1) individually, (2) with other bank customers, (3) with

bank employees, (4) with bank customers and bank employees. According to (table 2.2

appendix 3) there is a statistically significant correlation between the answers to the two

questions. Men are more likely to prefer innovating individually (31, 5%) while women are

more likely to prefer with bank customers and bank employees (48, 5%). The most responded

alternative, counting all the respondents, is with bank customers and bank employees (37,

7%).

Age? * What is the minimum reward it would take for you to get involved in helping

your bank in its innovation of new services?

Table 3.1 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of the age of the customers compared to what the

minimum reward it would take for them to get involved in helping their bank in its innovation

of new services is. The possible answers for the first question are: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

and 25. Regarding the question of reward the alternatives are: (1) Cash reward, (2) Other

material reward, (3) for the own benefits of customized services, (4) loyalty to the bank.

According to (table 3.1 appendix 3) there is a statistically significant correlation between the

answers to the two questions. The most popular response among 18 year olds is other material

reward (40,6 %) while 19 year olds are the age group which are the most likely to innovate

just because of the loyalty towards their bank out of all the age groups (14,8%). The 22 year

olds are the age group which are the most likely, out of all the age groups, to require a cash

reward to innovate (44,8%).

30

Age? * In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services?

Table 3.2 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of the age of the customer compared to in what

way the customers would prefer to communicate when they are part of the innovation of their

banks services. The possible answers for the first question are: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and

25. Regarding the question of way of communication the alternatives are: (1) Social media,

(2) E-mail, (3) Mobile applications, (4) Telephone, (5) Face-to-face, (6) Bank web page, (7)

Internet bank. According to (table 4.2) there is a statistically significant correlation between

the answers to the two questions. 18 to 21 year olds like the alternative mobile applications,

the responses within the age groups are between 19% and 44 % on that alternative. 19 and 20

year olds also like to communicate through the internet bank since their answer percentages is

40, 7% and 29 % respectively. 22 and 23 year olds are more sceptic to mobile applications

since only 9-10% percent of them chose that alternative. The 22 year olds prefer face-to-face

(27, 6%) and 23 year olds prefer the internet bank (29, 8%). The 24 year olds prefer the banks

web page and the internet bank (both 21, 3%) and the 25 year olds prefer social media (27,

3%) and the banks web page (18, 2%).

Education? * In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services?

Table 4.1 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of the level of education compared to in what way

the customers would prefer to communicate when they are part of the innovation of their

banks services. The possible answers for the first question are: (1) High school, (2) College of

higher vocational studies, (3) University one to three years, (4) University more than three

years. According to (table 5.2 appendix 3) there is a statistically significant correlation

between the answers to the two questions. The respondents who chose high school as level of

education preferred the mobile application as way of communicating (32%) while the

respondents who went to the university did not like the idea of a mobile application as much

(8-12%). Furthermore, the answers of the two university groups did not differ particularly on

the different ways of communication.

Education? * How would you prefer to develop your bank’s services?

Table 4.2 is a cross tabulation (appendix 3) of which level of education the customer has

compared to how the customers would prefer to develop their bank’s services. The possible

answers for the first question are: (1) High school, (2) College of higher vocational studies,

(3) University one to three years, (4) University more than three years. Regarding the question

31

of how they would like to develop services the alternatives are: (1) individually, (2) with other

bank customers, (3) with bank employees, (4) with bank customers and bank employees.

According to (table 4.2 appendix 3) there is a statistically significant correlation between the

answers to the two questions. Respondents who just went to high school are more likely to

prefer working together with other customers (24, 6%) than respondents who went to the

university (around 8%). The respondents who studied at the university for one to three years

preferred to work together with other customers and the employees of the bank (42,4%) which

also the respondents who went to the university for more than three years did (40,9%)

4.3 Descriptive statistics

The descriptive statistics tables (5.1, 5.2 and 5.3, appendix 4) explain the mean of the answers

of the scale questions. The respondents could answer 1 for not at all to 7 which was much.

The descriptive table (5.1, appendix 4) shows the mean of the respondent’s answers for the

questions related to the creation of ideas for new services. The three questions were: (1) to

what degree do you feel you are participating in your bank’s development of new services?

(2) To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input? (3) To what degree do

you feel you could contribute to your bank’s innovation process? The mean answer for the

first question was 2, 02, for the second question it was 2, 88 and for the third it was 3, 30. The

descriptive table (5.2, appendix 4) shows the mean of the respondent’s answers for the

questions related to the development of the services. The three questions were: (1) to what

degree do you feel you are participating in your bank’s development of new services? (2) To

what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input? (3) To what degree do you

feel you could contribute to your bank’s innovation process? The mean answer for the first

question was 1, 97 for the second question it was 2, 86 and for the third it was 3, 03. The

descriptive table (5.3, appendix 4) shows the mean of the respondent’s answers for the

questions related to the evaluation and feedback of the services. The three questions were: (1)

to what degree do you feel you are participating in your bank’s development of new services?

(2) To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input? (3) To what degree do

you feel you could contribute to your bank’s innovation process? The mean answer for the

first question was 2, 63 for the second question it was 3, 42 and for the third it was 3, 79.

32

4.4 Regression analyzes

1.1 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig.

Tolerance (Constant) ,170

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,180 ,002 ,973

Gender? ,067 ,248 ,966

Age? ,004 ,955 ,516

1

Education? -,069 ,380 ,529

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,041 ,028

ANOVAb

Sig.

,014a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel you are participating in your

banks development of new services? (1 is for not participating and 7 is for much

participating) - In the creation of ideas for new services?

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with their bank

the more they feel part in the creation of ideas for new services. No correlation among

different gender, age and education can be found.

33

1.2 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig.

Tolerance

(Constant) ,740

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,154 ,008 ,973

Gender? ,114 ,052 ,966

Age? ,068 ,397 ,516

1

Education? -,039 ,617 ,529

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,033 ,020

ANOVAb

Sig.

,042a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel you are participating in your

banks development of new services? (1 is for not participating and 7 is for much

participating - In the development of services?

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with their bank

the more they feel part in the development stage of services. No significant correlation among

different gender, age and education can be found.

1.3 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig.

Tolerance

(Constant) ,000

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,241 ,000 ,973

Gender? -,015 ,770 ,966

Age? -,268 ,000 ,516

1

Education? -,144 ,042 ,529

34

ANOVAb

Sig.

,000a

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,226 ,216

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel you are participating in your

banks development of new services? (1 means no participation and 7 mean much

participation - In evaluation and feedback of the services?

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with their bank

the more they feel part in the evaluation and feedback stage. The chart is also showing that the

involvement in the stage is decreasing with the age of the respondents. No significant

correlation among different gender and education can be found.

2.1Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig. Tolerance

(Constant) ,454

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,157 ,006 ,973

Gender? ,053 ,360 ,966

Age? ,071 ,369 ,516

1

Education? ,146 ,062 ,529

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,058 ,046

ANOVAb

Sig.

,001a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for

input? (1 is for not receptive and 7 is for much receptive) - In the creation of ideas

for new services?

35

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with their bank

the more they perceive it to be receptive for input in the creation of ideas. No significant

correlation among different Gender, ages and education can be found.

2,2 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig. Tolerance

(Constant) ,160

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,081 ,161 ,973

Gender? -,011 ,848 ,966

Age? ,057 ,472 ,516

1

Education? ,141 ,073 ,529

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,038 ,025

ANOVAb

Sig.

,022a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for

input? (1 is for not receptive and 7 is for much receptive) - In the development of

services?

The chart is showing no significant correlation between banks receptiveness in the developing

stage of services and education, gender, how often you have personal contact with your bank

and age.

36

2,3 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig. Tolerance

(Constant) ,000

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,168 ,003 ,973

Gender? -,084 ,132 ,966

Age? -,278 ,000 ,516

1

Education? ,020 ,793 ,529

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,114 ,102

ANOVAb

Sig.

,000a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for

input? (1 is for not receptive and 7 is for much receptive) - In evaluation and

feedback of the services?

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with their bank

the more they perceive their bank to be receptive in evaluation and feedback of services. The

chart is also showing that the perception of how receptive banks are is decreasing with the age

of the respondents. No significant correlation among different gender and education can be

found.

37

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with the bank

the more they believe they can contribute in the creation of ideas for new services. The chart

is also showing that this contribution is decreasing with the age of the respondents. No

significant correlation among different gender and education can be found.

3,2 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig. Tolerance

(Constant) ,000

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,082 ,162 ,973

Gender? ,045 ,444 ,966

Age? -,096 ,229 ,516

1

Education? -,047 ,555 ,529

3,1 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig. Tolerance

(Constant) ,000

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,209 ,000 ,973

Gender? -,044 ,431 ,966

Age? -,161 ,035 ,516

1

Education? -,109 ,148 ,529

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,120 ,108

ANOVAb

Sig.

,000a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your

bank's innovation process? ( 1 is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute) - In

the creation of ideas for new services?

38

R Square

Adjusted R

Square

,029 ,016

ANOVAb

Sig.

,065a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your

bank's innovation process? ( 1 is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute) - In

the development of services?

The chart is showing no significant correlation between respondent’s perception of

contribution in the developing stage of services and education, gender, how often you have

personal contact with your bank and age.

3,3 Coefficientsa

Standardized

Coefficients

Collinearity

Statistics

Model Beta Sig. Tolerance

(Constant) ,000

How often do you have

personal contact with your

bank?

,185 ,001 ,973

Gender? -,029 ,596 ,966

Age? -,241 ,002 ,516

1

Education? -,057 ,448 ,529

R Square

Adjusted

R Square

,128 ,116

ANOVAb

Sig.

,000a

a. Predictors: (Constant), Education?, Gender?, How often do you have personal

contact with your bank?, Age?

b. Dependent Variable: To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your

bank's innovation process? ( 1 is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute) - In

evaluation and feedback of the services?

The chart is showing that the more personal contact that the respondents have with their bank

the more they believe they can contribute in the evaluation and feedback of services. The

chart is also showing that this contribution is decreasing with the age of the respondents. No

significant correlation among different gender and education can be found.

39

5. Analysis

This chapter presents the analysis of the paper. It follows the theoretical model of this

research, which is based on Alam (2002). The stages of the model are purpose/objective of

involvement, stages of involvement, intensity of involvement and modes of involvement.

5.1 Purpose/objective of involvement

Matthing & Sanden (2004) state that; a reason for involving the customers is to get

information about the latent needs of the customers. Since these needs are not expressed by

the customers because they do not now they have the needs until they experience the services.

The companies have to involve the customers to gain this knowledge of the latent needs.

According to descriptive table (5.1 and 5.2, appendix 4) the customers do not feel particularly

involved in the banks involvement process when it comes to the idea creation and

development of the services. Magnusson et al. (2003) argue that the companies cannot simply

ask customers for ideas but have to involve the customers further but since the customers do

not feel involved in the idea creation or the development of the services there is a lot to

improve in that are for the companies. The evaluation and feedback part of the innovation

process does however indicate a larger involvement of the customers according to descriptive

table (5.3, appendix 4). Even though the involvement is larger it is still at a relatively low

level.

Alam & Perry (2002) argue that if the companies have an active strategy who reaches the

customers early and intensively the companies can gain a greater knowledge about the

customers. The empirical study of this research confirms this possibility since the customers

are, according to descriptive tables (5.1, 5.2 and 5.3, appendix 4) feeling that they could

contribute more in the whole innovation process than they are doing presently. This is shown

by the fact that the mean value of the answers of; to what degree do you feel you could

contribute to your banks innovation process questions are higher than the mean value of the

answers of the to what degree do you feel you are participating in your banks development of

new services. Lundqvist & Yakhlef (2004) state that to be able to innovate it is vital to know

what the customers want and since the customers feel they can contribute more to the service

innovation process than they do the customers might feel that the companies could create

services which is better suited for them. The importance to adapt the services to the

customer’s needs was also highlighted by Alam (2002). He stated that there is a constant need

of developing services which are suitable for the users in the industry.

40

The empirical study also shows that the customers feel that the banks are more receptive for

the customers input than they are involved in the innovation process according to descriptive

table (5.1, 5.2 and 5.3, appendix 4). This means that the customers could be more involved

but does not chose to get involved as much as they can. The reason for this is hard to

determine, however since the customers feel that they could contribute more than they are

doing now and that cross tabulation chart (3.1, appendix 3) is showing that almost half of the

respondents would help their bank innovate to get the service more adapted to their needs a

reasonable thought is that it is a question of how to involve the customers. Prahalad &

Ramaswamy (2000) stated that the role of the customer in the innovation process is to share

their knowledge, contribute with their skills and experiences and inform about their

frustrations, problems and expectations. The problem for the banks could be that they do not

let the customers fully take this role. McQuarrie & McIntyre (1986) argue that users are

normally not a part of the first phases of the innovation process because the companies do not

trust them in that area. However, since the customers want to be involved more to develop

services more adapted to them they could as Alam & Perry (2002) highlight help the

companies with the diffusion of the services. Gupta & Wilemon (1990) argue that customer

involvement can lead to shorter development cycles. This is hard to prove with our empirical

study, however since the customers are willing to help the banks develop their services to

better fit the needs of themselves; the customers to some extent determine the process

together with the bank. Magnusson et al. (2003) state that; the customers create more original

ideas than the companies. This can’t be proven by this empirical study however as earlier

mentioned the customers feel that they can contribute with more than they are doing when it

comes to the innovation process of the banks.

5.2 Stages of involvement

The regression analysis charts (1.1, 2.1 and 3.1) shows that the more personal contact

respondents have with the bank the more they perceive: to be involved, the bank receptive to

input and that they can contribute in the idea generation stage. This stage which Alam (2006)

calls the fuzzy front end, Alam also claims this to be the most important stage for companies

to involve users in. Lettl (2007) stress the importance of having the capability to involve the

right users at the right time in the right form. The only thing that seems to matter in the idea

generation stage is the frequency of personal contact they have. Except that younger

respondent to a larger extent perceive themselves more participating in the development of

41

services. In the second stage were the service is being developed the only correlation that the

results gave were that the more personal contact the more they felt participating. These

correlations does not give any clues just by looking at them one and one but if compared with

the results showed in the last stage some interesting correlations can be found. In the

evaluation and feedback stage, the intensity of personal contact just like in the first stage,

makes respondents perceive their involvement, banks receptiveness and their ability to

contribute to a higher extent. These variables have also a correlation with the age of the

respondents, the variables goes up when the age goes down. These age correlations show of

very strong figures, making it highly significant. The differences between the answers and the

stages are large. Especially the development stage sticks out from the rest, with only one

obvious correlation. This could be because of difficulties in identifying this stage’s processes.

Magnusson (2003) claims; to get hold of latent information from customers, consultancy from

the employee’s is necessary. Customer’s knowledge can not only be implemented in the start

or the end of an innovation process. Giving customers information about technology or the

process is probably necessary if a company wants to involve customers in the creation process

of new service, especially if it is a technological innovation or advanced system change of any

sort. Perhaps to come up with an idea or evaluating a finished service is much easier for a

customer than to come up with changes on feature in development. If we instead look at the

mean value of every stage and question, other interesting correlations reveal themselves. In

the descriptive statistics table (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, appendix 4) the evaluation and feedback stage

seems to be where most of the user involvement takes place today and also the place where

respondents perceive they can contribute the most.

Nambisian (2002) states that this stage can help companies reduce development costs and get

in touch with customers need. The customers are to identify unwanted features or features

wanted but not applied. The question is if the evaluation and support stage is the right stage if

the company has the purpose of reducing development costs. Perhaps customers should be

involved earlier from the beginning or at least in the development stage to reduce

development costs. Which stage to direct the user involvement depends on the purpose of the

interaction (Alam 2006), who also stress that specific goals needs to be set for each stage in

order to get useful information. The biggest difference in the descriptive tables can be seen in

descriptive table (5.1, appendix 4) were respondent are more involved in the evaluation and

feedback stage than the idea generation stage with the development stage between them.

Zolfagharian and Paswan (2010) stress that when customers are exposed to a service the

42

process is quite complicated. Customers go through a number of stages in accepting and

adapting to new services. This more frequent interaction between companies and customer

could explain that the later stages have higher figures. In fact the later stages have higher

values in all questions. This can have a number of explanations, the most likely is that idea

generation stages demands more involvement to create information of value, while the later

stages demands less involvement because customers probably already have experienced a

service and therefore are more adequate to give information of value. The user involvement in

the idea generation stage is not without value because respondents do perceive that they can

contribute more than they do today in that stage too, descriptive table (5.1, 5.3, appendix 4)

5.3 Intensity of involvement

The empirical data in regression analyze charts (1.1, 1.2, 1.3) all shows that the more personal

contact the respondents have with their bank the more they feel involved in the creation of

ideas, the development stage and support and feedback stage. According to Lettl (2007) a

face-to-face interaction is the best way which from a customer point of view all the charts are

proof of. This confirms Lundkvist and Yakhlef (2004) thoughts of involving customers as

fully legitimate actors. More frequent personal contact seems to give the company benefits as

well give the customers a greater feeling of involvement. In the stages idea generation and

feedback and support was there a correlation which showed the more personal contact the

more respondents perceived their bank as receptive of input. Alam (2006) discusses the issue

of relationship to users. The involvement of either a new user or a loyal user could make a

difference. Because of the lack in trust between both parts, the risk of involving a less

frequent user should rise but as Alam claim this could have a negative effect on the value of

the information shared.

The regression analysis charts (3.1 and 3.3) shows the more respondents have personal

contact with their bank the more they perceive they could contribute in the idea and feedback

and support stage. Alam (2006) stress that it is difficult in identifying the right customers

especially since commitment and cooperation differs between customers. As the charts show

the more involved they are; the more confident they show in to what extent they can

contribute. Therefore these should also be more committed into the banks development of

services. The problem here is whether this commitment and as mentioned earlier willingness

to be involve extends the facts that their ideas gets less value the more involved they become

in the company. There is a risk that extremely involved customer will become like an

employee, not seeing the radical innovations and its own needs like a common purpose of

43

user involvement is. To get a distanced user more committed and willing to share original

ideas is perhaps a difficult task for companies without any incitements for commitment. The

cross tabulation chart (1.1, appendix 3) shows interesting figures concerning this matter. 50

percent of the respondents that visit the bank only once a year answered that they could

contribute out of the reason of self interest in customized services, in comparison to those

who visit the bank once a week of which 37, 5 percent answered of the same reason. In the

same chart are there even more convincing figures. Of the once a year visitors 1.9 percent

chose loyalty to the bank as a incitement, in comparison to once a week visitors of which 25

percent chose loyalty. Matthing et al (2002) defines an active customer as one who in one way

or another interacts with service personnel, the service script and supporting tangibles. This

question only point out personal contact as an interaction but it shows that the less frequent

interaction the less are respondent willing to contribute. Therefore those with less interaction

have higher incitement demands for involvement.

5.4 Modes of involvement

The positive news for the bank searching for customers to involve is that if they can identify

the customers who would do it for free, as stated in the previous paragraph, they could really

benefit from this since it does not involve the bank spending a lot of money just to get

customers to try to get the customers involved. This could answer Nambisian’s (2002)

question of what the right incentive should be. When it comes to finding the right customers

the responses to the survey show that even though the segment of the respondents are almost

the same age there are some differences in what they are interested in as a reward for helping

the bank. Cross tabulation chart (3.1, appendix 3) shows that the 18 year olds, which are new

to some of the services are positive to innovating for their own benefit of adapted services,

however those who want a financial reward is settling with some kind of material reward

instead of money. This differs from the 22 year olds who are very interested in getting money

for getting involved in the innovation process. These differences might come from the

different stages in life the people in different ages are in. The 18 year olds is still in or has just

finished high school and might not have as much expenses as the 22 year olds have who need

money in reward for help innovating.

Regarding the different ways of communicating in the innovation process the empirical

chapter cross tabulation chart (1.2, appendix 3) shows that the internet bank, mobile

applications and social networks is the most popular forms of communicating. This does not

agree with Magnusson et al. (2003) who state that face-to face interaction has positive effects

44

in the interaction process. This might still be true but the respondents of the survey clearly

show that it is communication methods which are not involving face-to-face contact they

strive for. Andreassen & Streukens’ (2009) method of online listening might be applicable

here though since if there is a valid forum for discussing the banks services at the social

networks or in the internet bank the bank could use this information or ideas as what

Magnusson et al. (2003) state as a fresh injection for the company. Matthing et al (2004)

stated that to find the latent need of the customers the customer’s ideas should be generated in

their own environment. The respondents seem positive to this since they are positive towards

for example mobile applications were they can develop services when they feel the need or

have the opportunity and the time for it. The innovation in social networks might work in the

same way while the internet bank as a communication method might bring out latent needs

while they use the bank services. The respondent’s three favorite ways of communicating in

the innovation process does also create opportunities to involve the customers more than for

idea generation.

The communication methods could involve ways for the customers to create their own

services or adapt them for their needs. Since Lettl (2007) state that users are creating more

radical innovations than the manufacturers it might be wise for the companies to let the

customers innovate themselves. This could be achieved by what von Hippel & Katz (2002)

referred to as tool kits, tools which help the customers design their own services in an easier

fashion than the original way. Especially the mobile application alternative is suited for this.

Here could also the lead users of the services help the companies create the services. The lead

users can be found by mapping out who uses the latest services. Alam (2002) states that;

interviews and meetings with customers are the most used way of dealing with the customer

involvement in the service innovation. According to the empirical chapter however this seems

to be the wrong way to reach the customers since they prefer the three alternatives mentioned

earlier. Furthermore, the results of the survey agree with Slater’s & Olson´s (2001) view that

market oriented companies does not involve customers enough and that they are relying on

surveys or focus groups to get information from the customers. The most popular

communication methods in the survey are appropriate for involving customers more in the

service innovation.

Furthermore, different factors affect the choice of communication methods. Cross tabulation

chart (1.2, appendix 3) shows that people that have less contact with the bank prefer to

communicate through the internet bank and social networks and the people who has more

45

contact with the bank prefer to communicate over the telephone or face-to-face. This seems

logical since the people with less personal contact probably do their bank businesses on the

internet bank so therefore they prefer to have contact that way and the people who visit the

bank frequently might have a relationship with the banks employees and therefore wish to

have a personal contact in the innovation process too. According to cross tabulation chart (3,

2, appendix 3) there is also a difference in the choice of communication depending of the age

of the respondent. The younger respondents (age 18-21) prefer mobile applications and the

internet bank while the older respondents (age 22-25) prefer social networks and the banks

web page. Furthermore, the 22 and 23 year olds do not really put their faith in mobile

applications according to the cross tabulation chart (4.2, appendix 3). The differences could

mean two things according to the authors; either the mobile applications are popular among

the younger customers and are therefore on the way of being a more used solution or that it is

a way of communicating which suits the young segment.

Moreover cross tabulation chart (3.2, appendix 3) shows that gender is also a factor which

influences the choice of communication method. Men are more likely to use social networks

than women and women are more likely to prefer the telephone than men. However, the

telephone alternative was not that attractive among either men or women. Cross tabulation

chart (4.1, appendix 3) shows that; education also is a factor that affects the preferred

communication method. People who just went to high school prefer the mobile application

while people who went to the university are more restrictive towards using this method. It is

hard to analyze why this is though. Furthermore, the differences between people with a

shorter university education and people with a longer one were minimal regarding this

question.

Lettl (2007) argue that it is important to find out how many customers the companies should

involve. Cross tabulation chart (2.2, appendix 3) shows that the customers prefers to innovate

together with other customers and the employees of the companies. This gives the innovation

process input from both a wide variety of customers but also from the employees. Sinkula

(1994) and Matthing & Sanden (2004) are positive to collaboration between the companies’

employees and the customers which also the customers prefer. However, Magnusson et al.

(2003) argue that the consultation from the companies’ employees make the customers ideas

less original. Therefore it is important for the companies; if they follow the customer’s

preferences to work with other customers and the companies’ employees, to not suffocate the

originality of the customer’s ideas. Furthermore, there are differences between men and

46

women in the preferences of this question according to cross tabulation chart (4.2, appendix

3); men prefer to innovate themselves, while women prefer to innovate together with other

customers and the companies’ employees. There are also small differences of the preferences

of the question depending on the level of education the respondents have. The respondents

who just have a high school education are more open to innovating with other customers

without the help of the company, while the respondents with a university education are not

especially positive to this approach, instead they want to innovate with other customers and

the companies’ employees. What can be derived from this is that the respondents are positive

to innovating with other customers but the level of education is affecting if they also want the

employees to be involved.

47

6. Conclusion

This chapter is presenting the conclusion for our research question: What preferences do

customers have when interacting in service development and what kind of involvement is best

suited for their needs?

Since the customers are willing and believe that they can contribute more than they do today

and that theory highlights the need for user adapted services, the most essential purpose of

involving customers is to create customized services, which is influenced by customer needs.

Customers can also help with faster diffusion of the innovation if involved from the beginning

of the service development. The purpose of the involvement influences the level of

involvement in the different stages of service innovation.

The idea generation stage demands a higher involvement from the customers if the

information given should be of value. The development stage requires an information

exchange about the process to create information of value, this because the stage is perceived

more complex. The evaluation and feedback stage are where most of user involvement takes

place. This stage demands less involvement because customers get to experience a service and

therefore are more adequate to give information of value.

More frequent personal contact gives the company benefits and gives the customers a greater

feeling of involvement. If a customer with more frequent personal contact is involved,

commitment and mutual trust are expected but the originality of the information is lower than

the information from those with less frequent contact. However Trust and commitment are

expected to be lower with less frequent contact. Those with less interaction also have higher

incentives demand for involvement.

Customers wants communication methods which are not involving face-to-face interaction.

Instead they prefer mobile applications, social networks and the internet bank. Customers

prefer to innovate together with other customers and employees of the bank.

48

7. Reflections In this research an internet survey was conducted, consisting of closed question with

alternatives that were theoretically an empirically grounded. The empirical foundation was

built up by the pre-study. The surveys were sent out using a convenience sample because of

problems in getting hold of e-mail addresses for the large population. The authors realize that

the convenience sample limits the generalizability of the study. Furthermore, because of the

chosen distribution method of the internet surveys the response rate might have been affected

and there were still a lot of people who got the link to the survey but chose not to answer for

different reasons. Judging from the responses to the questions and from the correlation

analyzes the authors believe that the survey was easy to understand and to fill out for the

respondents; however there is always a risk for misunderstandings when dealing with surveys.

This research aimed at reducing these misunderstandings by making the survey in Swedish

and by using a simple language. Still this means we cannot rule out misunderstandings of the

survey questions in this research.

Although the customers were from different age groups, gender, had different levels of

education and relations to the banks in form of personal contact with them; the number of

respondents in the different diversifications varied making some analyzes hard to make. This

since if some demographic group has too few respondents the percentages is not comparable

to other groups.

8. Further research Since this thesis uses a survey which consist of closed questions, making the answers of the

respondents somewhat pre-determined; meaning they are still free to answer as they please

but they can only answer the alternatives available. A study of open-ended questions or a

focus group might provide other answers allowing the customers to be more creative in their

choices of ways to be involved in the service innovation. Furthermore, this research is

focusing on bank customers; therefore a study of other industries could provide a new

perspective on how the customer involvement in service innovation is preferably conducted

by the customers. Another approach would be to compare this research of the banking

industry to some other industry. There are also geographical possibilities to increase the

knowledge of the research area. This research’s empirical study is solely conducted in

Sweden and therefore customers in other geographical areas might have different opinions,

making a study of a new area interesting.

49

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53

Appendix 1. Coding model

1. How often do you have personal contact with your bank?

1. Once a year or less 2. Once every sixth month 3. Once or twice a month 4. Once a week or more

2. Which bank services do you use today?

1. Bank loan 2. Stock investment 3. Fund investment 4. Internet bank 5. Mobile bank 6. Phone bank

3. To what degree do you feel you are participating in your bank’s development of new

services (1 is for not participating and 7 is for much participating)?

4. To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input ( 1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much receptive)?

5. To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your bank’s innovation process (1

is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute)?

6. What is the minimum reward it would take for you to get involved in helping your

bank in its innovation of new services?

1. Cash reward

2. Other material rewards

3. For the own benefits of customized services

4. Loyalty against the bank

7. In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the innovation of

your banks new services?

1. Social media

2. E-mail

3. Mobile applications

4. Telephone

54

5. Face-to-face

6. Bank webpage

7. Internet bank

8. How would you prefer to develop your bank’s services?

1. Individually

2. With other bank customers

3. With bank employees

4. With bank employees and customers

9. Gender?

1. Man

2. Women

11. Age?

1. 18

2. 19

3. 20

4. 21

5. 22

6. 23

7. 24

8. 25

11. Education?

1. High school

2. College of higher vocational studies

3. University 1-3 years

4. University more than 3 years

55

Appendix 2. Interview guideline pre-study: semi-structured interviews

1. What does the service development process in the bank industry look like

today?

2. Are the customers involved in this process?

3. How do the bank and the customers interact today?

4. How will the bank and the customers interact in the future?

5. What are the incentives for the customer to take part in the service

development process?

6. What are the incentives for the companies to involve customers in the service

development process?

Since this was a semi-structured interview the questions varied somewhat because of the

answers from the respondents. However, this was the basis for the interviews.

56

Appendix 3. Crosstabulations 1.1

How often do you have personal contact with your bank? * What is the minimum reward it

would take for you to get involved in helping your bank in its innovation of new services?

Crosstabulation

What is the minimum reward it would take for

you to get involved in helping your bank in its

innovation of new services?

1 2 3 4 Total

Count 41 34 78 3 156 1

% within How

often do you have

personal contact

with your bank?

26,3% 21,8% 50,0% 1,9% 100,0

%

Count 15 36 52 7 110 2

% within How

often do you have

personal contact

with your bank?

13,6% 32,7% 47,3% 6,4% 100,0

%

Count 0 11 13 2 26 3

% within How

often do you have

personal contact

with your bank?

,0% 42,3% 50,0% 7,7% 100,0

%

Count 2 1 3 2 8

How often do you

have personal

contact with your

bank?

4

% within How

often do you have

personal contact

with your bank?

25,0% 12,5% 37,5% 25,0% 100,0

%

Count 58 82 146 14 300 Total

% within How

often do you have

personal contact

with your bank?

19,3% 27,3% 48,7% 4,7% 100,0

%

57

1.2 How often do you have personal contact with your bank? * In what way would you prefer to communicate

when you are part of the innovation of your banks services? Via: Crosstabulation

In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part

of the innovation of your banks services? Via:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

Count 18 17 28 4 17 22 50 1561

% within How

often do you

have personal

contact with

your bank?

11,5% 10,9% 17,9% 2,6% 10,9% 14,1% 32,1% 100,0%

Count 28 12 21 5 17 13 14 1102

% within How

often do you

have personal

contact with

your bank?

25,5% 10,9% 19,1% 4,5% 15,5% 11,8% 12,7% 100,0%

Count 4 2 6 7 2 3 2 263

% within How

often do you

have personal

contact with

your bank?

15,4% 7,7% 23,1% 26,9% 7,7% 11,5% 7,7% 100,0%

Count 0 1 2 0 3 0 2 8

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 27,709a 9 ,001

Likelihood Ratio 29,419 9 ,001

Linear-by-Linear Association 6,420 1 ,011

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 5 cells (31,3%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected

count is ,37 [?].

58

% within How

often do you

have personal

contact with

your bank?

,0% 12,5% 25,0% ,0% 37,5% ,0% 25,0% 100,0%

Count 50 32 57 16 39 38 68 300Total

% within How

often do you

have personal

contact with

your bank?

16,7% 10,7% 19,0% 5,3% 13,0% 12,7% 22,7% 100,0%

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 55,264a 18 ,000

Likelihood Ratio 46,821 18 ,000

Linear-by-Linear Association 6,845 1 ,009

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 13 cells (46,4%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected

count is ,43.

2.1

Gender? * In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the innovation of your

banks services? Via: Crosstabulation

In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services? Via:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

Count 31 13 29 2 22 15 31 1431

% within

Gender?

21,7% 9,1% 20,3% 1,4% 15,4% 10,5% 21,7% 100,0%

Count 19 19 28 14 17 23 37 157

Gender

?

2

% within

Gender?

12,1% 12,1% 17,8% 8,9% 10,8% 14,6% 23,6% 100,0%

Count 50 32 57 16 39 38 68 300Total

% within

Gender?

16,7% 10,7% 19,0% 5,3% 13,0% 12,7% 22,7% 100,0%

59

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 15,257a 6 ,018

Likelihood Ratio 16,398 6 ,012

Linear-by-Linear Association 1,871 1 ,171

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 0 cells (,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count

is 7,63.

2.2

Gender? * How would you prefer to develop your bank's services? Crosstabulation

How would you prefer to develop your bank's services? 1 2 3 4 Total

Count 45 23 38 37 1431

% within Gender? 31,5% 16,1% 26,6% 25,9% 100,0%

Count 29 21 31 76 157

Gender?

2

% within Gender? 18,5% 13,4% 19,7% 48,4% 100,0%

Count 74 44 69 113 300Total

% within Gender? 24,7% 14,7% 23,0% 37,7% 100,0%

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 17,105a 3 ,001

Likelihood Ratio 17,377 3 ,001

Linear-by-Linear Association 13,591 1 ,000

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 0 cells (,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected

count is 20,97.

60

3.1

Age? * What is the minimum reward it would take for you to get involved in helping your bank in its innovation

of new services? Cross-tabulation

What is the minimum reward it would take for you to get involved in

helping your bank in its innovation of new services?

1 2 3 4 Total

Count 2 13 17 0 3218

% within Age? 6,3% 40,6% 53,1% ,0% 100,0%

Count 1 10 12 4 2719

% within Age? 3,7% 37,0% 44,4% 14,8% 100,0%

Count 5 12 11 3 3120

% within Age? 16,1% 38,7% 35,5% 9,7% 100,0%

Count 7 5 20 1 3321

% within Age? 21,2% 15,2% 60,6% 3,0% 100,0%

Count 13 3 13 0 2922

% within Age? 44,8% 10,3% 44,8% ,0% 100,0%

Count 9 17 27 4 5723

% within Age? 15,8% 29,8% 47,4% 7,0% 100,0%

Count 10 7 29 1 4724

% within Age? 21,3% 14,9% 61,7% 2,1% 100,0%

Count 11 15 17 1 44

Age?

25

% within Age? 25,0% 34,1% 38,6% 2,3% 100,0%

Count 58 82 146 14 300Total

% within Age? 19,3% 27,3% 48,7% 4,7% 100,0%

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 47,746a 21 ,001

Likelihood Ratio 49,507 21 ,000

Linear-by-Linear Association 2,797 1 ,094

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 8 cells (25,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

expected count is 1,26.

61

3.2

Age? * In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the innovation of your banks

services? Via:

Crosstabulation

In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services? Via:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

Count 6 0 14 5 2 1 4 3218

% within

Age?

18,8% ,0% 43,8% 15,6% 6,3% 3,1% 12,5% 100,0%

Count 5 0 8 0 0 3 11 2719

% within

Age?

18,5% ,0% 29,6% ,0% ,0% 11,1% 40,7% 100,0%

Count 3 2 6 3 4 4 9 3120

% within

Age?

9,7% 6,5% 19,4% 9,7% 12,9% 12,9% 29,0% 100,0%

Count 7 5 8 2 3 2 6 3321

% within

Age?

21,2% 15,2% 24,2% 6,1% 9,1% 6,1% 18,2% 100,0%

Count 3 5 3 2 8 3 5 2922

% within

Age?

10,3% 17,2% 10,3% 6,9% 27,6% 10,3% 17,2% 100,0%

Count 8 10 5 2 8 7 17 5723

% within

Age?

14,0% 17,5% 8,8% 3,5% 14,0% 12,3% 29,8% 100,0%

Count 6 4 8 2 7 10 10 4724

% within

Age?

12,8% 8,5% 17,0% 4,3% 14,9% 21,3% 21,3% 100,0%

Count 12 6 5 0 7 8 6 44

Age

?

25

% within

Age?

27,3% 13,6% 11,4% ,0% 15,9% 18,2% 13,6% 100,0%

Count 50 32 57 16 39 38 68 300Total

% within

Age?

16,7% 10,7% 19,0% 5,3% 13,0% 12,7% 22,7% 100,0%

62

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 74,626a 42 ,001

Likelihood Ratio 82,736 42 ,000

Linear-by-Linear Association ,101 1 ,751

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 26 cells (46,4%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected

count is 1,44.

4.1

Education? * In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the innovation of your

banks services? Via: Crosstabulation

In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services? Via:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

Count 20 7 39 10 10 11 25 1221

% within

Education?

16,4% 5,7% 32,0% 8,2% 8,2% 9,0% 20,5% 100,0

%

Count 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 52

% within

Education?

,0% ,0% 20,0% 20,0% 20,0% 20,0% 20,0% 100,0

%

Count 14 11 10 3 14 12 21 853

% within

Education?

16,5% 12,9% 11,8% 3,5% 16,5% 14,1% 24,7% 100,0

%

Count 16 14 7 2 14 14 21 88

Educati

on?

4

% within

Education?

18,2% 15,9% 8,0% 2,3% 15,9% 15,9% 23,9% 100,0

%

Count 50 32 57 16 39 38 68 300Total

% within

Education?

16,7% 10,7% 19,0% 5,3% 13,0% 12,7% 22,7% 100,0

%

63

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 38,265a 18 ,004

Likelihood Ratio 39,636 18 ,002

Linear-by-Linear Association 1,267 1 ,260

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 9 cells (32,1%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected

count is ,27.

This test shows that there is a statistically significant correlation between: the customer’s level

of education and in what way they would prefer to communicate when they are part of the

innovation of their banks services?

4.2

Education? * How would you prefer to develop your bank's services? Cross-tabulation

How would you prefer to develop your bank's services? 1 2 3 4 Total

Count 28 30 25 39 1221

% within Education? 23,0% 24,6% 20,5% 32,0% 100,0%

Count 2 0 1 2 52

% within Education? 40,0% ,0% 20,0% 40,0% 100,0%

Count 21 7 21 36 853

% within Education? 24,7% 8,2% 24,7% 42,4% 100,0%

Count 23 7 22 36 88

Education?

4

% within Education? 26,1% 8,0% 25,0% 40,9% 100,0%

Count 74 44 69 113 300Total

% within Education? 24,7% 14,7% 23,0% 37,7% 100,0%

Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig.

(2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 17,139a 9 ,047

Likelihood Ratio 17,438 9 ,042

Linear-by-Linear

Association

1,874 1 ,171

N of Valid Cases 300

a. 4 cells (25,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

64

expected count is ,73.

65

Appendix 4. Deskriptive statistics 5.1

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

To what degree do you feel

you are participating in your

banks development of new

services? (1 is for not

participating and 7 is for

much participating) - In the

creation of ideas for new

services?

300 1 7 2,02 1,320

To what degree do you feel

your bank is being receptive

for input?(1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much

receptive) - In the creation

of ideas for new services?

300 1 7 2,88 1,427

To what degree do you feel

you could contribute to your

bank's innovation process?

( 1 is for not contribute and

7 is for much contribute) -

In the creation of ideas for

new services?

300 1 7 3,30 1,494

Valid N (listwise) 300

66

5.2

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

To what degree do you feel

you are participating in your

banks development of new

services? (1 is for not

participating and 7 is for

much participating - In the

development of services?

300 1 7 1,97 1,308

To what degree do you feel

your bank is being receptive

for input?(1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much

receptive) - In the

development of services?

300 1 7 2,86 1,413

To what degree do you feel

you could contribute to your

bank's innovation process?

( 1 is for not contribute and

7 is for much contribute) - In

the development of

services?

300 1 7 3,03 1,440

Valid N (listwise) 300

67

5.3

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

To what degree do you feel

you are participating in your

banks development of new

services? (1 is for not

participating and 7 is for

much participating - In

evaluation and feedback of

the services?

300 1 7 2,63 1,573

To what degree do you feel

your bank is being receptive

for input?(1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much

receptive) - In evaluation

and feedback of the

services?

300 1 7 3,42 1,489

To what degree do you feel

you could contribute to your

bank's innovation process?

( 1 is for not contribute and

7 is for much contribute) - In

evaluation and feedback of

the services?

300 1 7 3,79 1,779

Valid N (listwise) 300

68

Appendix 5. Frequency Table

How often do you have personal contact with your bank?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 156 52,0 52,0 52,0

2 110 36,7 36,7 88,7

3 26 8,7 8,7 97,3

4 8 2,7 2,7 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

Which bank services do you use today? - 1

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 1 34 11,3 100,0 100,0

Missing System 266 88,7

Total 300 100,0

Which bank services do you use today? - 2

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 2 76 25,3 100,0 100,0

Missing System 224 74,7

Total 300 100,0

Which bank services do you use today? - 3

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 3 214 71,3 100,0 100,0

Missing System 86 28,7

Total 300 100,0

69

Which bank services do you use today? - 4

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 4 298 99,3 100,0 100,0

Missing System 2 ,7

Total 300 100,0

Which bank services do you use today? - 5

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 5 116 38,7 100,0 100,0

Missing System 184 61,3

Total 300 100,0

Which bank services do you use today? - 6

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid 6 79 26,3 100,0 100,0

Missing System 221 73,7

Total 300 100,0

To what degree do you feel you are participating in your banks development

of new services? (1 is for not participating and 7 is for much participating) - In

the creation of ideas for new services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 145 48,3 48,3 48,3

2 73 24,3 24,3 72,7

3 42 14,0 14,0 86,7

4 19 6,3 6,3 93,0

5 15 5,0 5,0 98,0

6 3 1,0 1,0 99,0

7 3 1,0 1,0 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

70

To what degree do you feel you are participating in your banks development

of new services? (1 is for not participating and 7 is for much participating - In

the development of services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 153 51,0 51,0 51,0

2 75 25,0 25,0 76,0

3 30 10,0 10,0 86,0

4 20 6,7 6,7 92,7

5 16 5,3 5,3 98,0

6 5 1,7 1,7 99,7

7 1 ,3 ,3 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

To what degree do you feel you are participating in your banks development

of new services? (1 is for not participating and 7 is for much participating - In

evaluation and feedback of the services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 110 36,7 36,7 36,7

2 41 13,7 13,7 50,3

3 57 19,0 19,0 69,3

4 52 17,3 17,3 86,7

5 25 8,3 8,3 95,0

6 13 4,3 4,3 99,3

7 2 ,7 ,7 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

71

To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input?(1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much receptive) - In the creation of ideas for new

services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 60 20,0 20,0 20,0

2 63 21,0 21,0 41,0

3 86 28,7 28,7 69,7

4 56 18,7 18,7 88,3

5 22 7,3 7,3 95,7

6 6 2,0 2,0 97,7

7 7 2,3 2,3 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input?(1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much receptive) - In the development of services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 54 18,0 18,0 18,0

2 84 28,0 28,0 46,0

3 65 21,7 21,7 67,7

4 64 21,3 21,3 89,0

5 20 6,7 6,7 95,7

6 7 2,3 2,3 98,0

7 6 2,0 2,0 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

72

To what degree do you feel your bank is being receptive for input?(1 is for not

receptive and 7 is for much receptive) - In evaluation and feedback of the

services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 37 12,3 12,3 12,3

2 51 17,0 17,0 29,3

3 57 19,0 19,0 48,3

4 85 28,3 28,3 76,7

5 52 17,3 17,3 94,0

6 9 3,0 3,0 97,0

7 9 3,0 3,0 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your bank's innovation

process? ( 1 is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute) - In the

creation of ideas for new services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 47 15,7 15,7 15,7

2 57 19,0 19,0 34,7

3 42 14,0 14,0 48,7

4 83 27,7 27,7 76,3

5 56 18,7 18,7 95,0

6 14 4,7 4,7 99,7

7 1 ,3 ,3 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

73

To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your bank's innovation

process? ( 1 is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute) - In the

development of services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 51 17,0 17,0 17,0

2 70 23,3 23,3 40,3

3 64 21,3 21,3 61,7

4 62 20,7 20,7 82,3

5 40 13,3 13,3 95,7

6 12 4,0 4,0 99,7

7 1 ,3 ,3 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

To what degree do you feel you could contribute to your bank's innovation

process? ( 1 is for not contribute and 7 is for much contribute) - In evaluation

and feedback of the services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 41 13,7 13,7 13,7

2 45 15,0 15,0 28,7

3 42 14,0 14,0 42,7

4 53 17,7 17,7 60,3

5 61 20,3 20,3 80,7

6 43 14,3 14,3 95,0

7 15 5,0 5,0 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

74

What is the minimum reward it would take for you to get involved in helping

your bank in its innovation of new services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 58 19,3 19,3 19,3

2 82 27,3 27,3 46,7

3 146 48,7 48,7 95,3

4 14 4,7 4,7 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

In what way would you prefer to communicate when you are part of the

innovation of your banks services? Via:

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 50 16,7 16,7 16,7

2 32 10,7 10,7 27,3

3 57 19,0 19,0 46,3

4 16 5,3 5,3 51,7

5 39 13,0 13,0 64,7

6 38 12,7 12,7 77,3

7 68 22,7 22,7 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

How would you prefer to develop your bank's services?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 74 24,7 24,7 24,7

2 44 14,7 14,7 39,3

3 69 23,0 23,0 62,3

4 113 37,7 37,7 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

75

76

Gender?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 143 47,7 47,7 47,7

2 157 52,3 52,3 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

Age?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

18 32 10,7 10,7 10,7

19 27 9,0 9,0 19,7

20 31 10,3 10,3 30,0

21 33 11,0 11,0 41,0

22 29 9,7 9,7 50,7

23 57 19,0 19,0 69,7

24 47 15,7 15,7 85,3

25 44 14,7 14,7 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

Education?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

1 122 40,7 40,7 40,7

2 5 1,7 1,7 42,3

3 85 28,3 28,3 70,7

4 88 29,3 29,3 100,0

Valid

Total 300 100,0 100,0

Linnaeus University – a firm focus on quality and competence On 1 January 2010 Växjö University and the University of Kalmar merged to form Linnaeus University. This new university is the product of a will to improve the quality, enhance the appeal and boost the development potential of teaching and research, at the same time as it plays a prominent role in working closely together with local society. Linnaeus University offers an attractive knowledge environment characterised by high quality and a competitive portfolio of skills. Linnaeus University is a modern, international university with the emphasis on the desire for knowledge, creative thinking and practical innovations. For us, the focus is on proximity to our students, but also on the world around us and the future ahead. Linnæus University SE-391 82 Kalmar/SE-351 95 Växjö Telephone +46 772-28 80 00