Multi-Channel Choice in Retail Banking Services: Exploring the Role of Service Characteristics

Companies are moving towards omni-channel management offering all products and services on all channels. Yet, some of these investments might be obsolete as certain products are associated with certain channels. At this point, service companies are still left behind as past research focused on product categories and it remains unclear if the results are transferrable to services. Our study addresses this gap by analyzing the influence of service characteristics on channel choice. We tested our research model by surveying 2,000 banking customers in Germany on their past channel choices for five financial services. The results show that complex services with a high value are rather purchased in a branch than the online channel. Thereby, demographics and behavior-related constructs are important control variables. The results improve the understanding of channel choice behavior in a multi-channel context for services and provide guidance for practitioners to right-channel IT investments.