Trust‐based segmentation: Preliminary evidence from technology‐enabled bank channels

Trust has proven to be a key variable in understanding and predicting consumer behavior in the self‐service technology and e‐commerce contexts. However, it has never been examined as a segmentation variable. This study seeks to investigate the possibility of using trust in two self‐service bank channels: internet, and phone banking, to segment potential users of these channels.

Using data from a survey of 762 real bank customers discriminant analysis is used to test variables differentiating two groups of customers having, respectively, “high” and “low” trust in internet and phone banking.

Results show that the groups of “high” and “low” channel‐trustors are different in a number of attitudinal, behavioral and psychographic criteria. In addition, the two groups react differently in terms of intention to use internet, and phone banking.

This work contributes to existing literature on trust by opening an additional use of and a new research perspective on trust. Its findings are limited to the sector, technology and cultural context of the study.

In this paper several suggestions for bank managers to better target the adopters of self‐service technology‐based channels are discussed.

This is the first attempt to examine trust as a segmentation variable and to bring evidence for its relevance for marketing decisions.