Service and technology: Opportunities and paradoxes

Technology is profoundly changing the nature of services and the ways in which firms interact with their customers. The result, while positive, also has its downside. This paper elaborates on the opportunities that technology presents for firms to develop new services, and provide better, more efficient services to customers as well as the paradoxes and dark side of technology and services. The paper concludes with a section on what customers expect from technology-delivered services suggesting that “the more things change, the more some things remain the same”. Customers still demand quality service no matter how the firm chooses to structure the relationship. It is incumbent upon firms to develop technology-based services that can provide the same high level of service that customers expect from interpersonal service providers.