Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
skip to main content
article

Making the organization come alive: talking through and about the technology in remote banking

Published: 01 June 2003 Publication History

Abstract

Organizations have increasingly been seeking to interact with their customers using more "remote channels" such as telephone and computer-based technologies. This process has been a part of dramatic technological upheavals as technology enters into customer interactions. This article examines examples of this changing relationship, documenting the role of technology in delivering banking services over remote channels. We present details from two ethnographic studies concerning physical and digital representations of artifacts, talk, and the organization of customer-facing work and their relevance in "designing for the expanded interface." In telephone banking, sharing of objects and reconciliation between different instantiations are achieved through conversation. In video-conferencing, despite visual access to the same artifact, operators still need to guide customers around objects, explaining what they are seeing and what is happening. We look at the use of scripts designed to standardize operator interactions, the demeanor work undertaken by operators to account for the behavior of technology, attempts to configure customer interactions, and issues of trust in such technologically mediated communication.

References

[1]
Anderson, A. H., O'Malley, C., Doherty-Sneddon, G., Langton, S., Newlands, A., Mullin, J., et al. (1997) The impact of videomediated communication on collaborative problem solving. In K. Finn, A. Sellen, & S. Wilbur (Eds.), Videomediated communication (pp. 82-104). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
[2]
Berg, M. (1997). Rationalising medical work: Decision support techniques and medical practices . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[3]
Boden, D. (1994). The business of talk. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
[4]
Burton, D. (1994). Financial services and the consumer. London: Routledge.
[5]
Bowers, J., & Martin, D. (2000). Machinery in the new factories: Talk and technology in a bank's call centre. Proceedings of CSCW 2000 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. New York: ACM.
[6]
Bowers, J., Pycock, J., & O'Brien, J. (1996). Talk and embodiment in collaborative virtual environments. Proceedings of CHI 96 Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems. New York: ACM.
[7]
Ducatel, K. (1992). Computer networks in Britain: Communication technologies or technologies of control? In K. Robins (Ed.), Understanding information: Business, technology and geography (pp. 143-157). London: Belhaven Press.
[8]
Fukuyama, F. (1996). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. London: Penguin.
[9]
Finn, K., Sellen, A., & Wilbur, S. (Eds.). (1997). Videomediated communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
[10]
Gambetta, D. (Ed). (1990). Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
[11]
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. New York: Englewood Cliffs.
[12]
Harper, R., Randall, D., & Rouncefield, M. (2000). Organizational change in retail finance: An ethnographic perspective. London: Routledge.
[13]
Heath, C., Sellen, A., & Luff, P. (1995). Rethinking the virtual workplace: The need for flexible access in video-mediated communication. Proceedings of ECSCW 95 (pp. 83-100). Stockholm, Sweden: Klewer Academic Press.
[14]
Hughes, J., King, V., Rodden, T., & Andersen, H. (1994). Moving out of the control room: Ethnography in system design. Proceedings of CSCW '94 (pp. 429-440). Chapel Hill, NC: ACM.
[15]
Lawrence, D., Atwood, M. E., Dews, S., & Turner, T. (1995). Social interaction in the use and design of a workstation: Two contexts of interaction. In P. J. Thomas (Ed.), The social and interactional dimensions of human-computer interfaces (pp. 240-260). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
[16]
Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
[17]
Luhmann, N. (1979). Trust and power. Chichester, England: Wiley.
[18]
Luhmann, N. (1990). Familiarity, confidence, trust: Problems and alternatives. In D. Gambetta (Ed.), Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations (pp. 94-107). Oxford, England: Blackwell.
[19]
Randall, D., & Hughes, J. A. (1994). Sociology, CSCW and working with customers. In P. Thomas (Ed.), Social and interaction dimensions of system design (pp. 172-192). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
[20]
Randall, D., Rouncefield, M., & Hughes, J. (1995). Chalk and cheese: BPR and ethnomethodologically informed ethnography on CSCW. Proceedings of E-CSCW '95 (pp. 325-340). Stolkholm: Kluwer Academic Press.
[21]
Sacks, H. (1992a). Lecture 3, Spring 1972. In E. A. Schegloff (Ed.), Lectures in conversation (Vol. 2, p. 548). Oxford, England: Blackwell.
[22]
Sacks, H. (1992b). Lectures on conversation. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
[23]
Shneiderman, B. (2000). Designing websites to enhance online trust. Communications of the ACM, 43 (12), 81-83.
[24]
Smith, S., & Wield, D. (1988). New technology and bank work: Banking on IT as an organizational technology. In L. Harris, J. Coakley, M. Croasdale, & T. Evans (Eds.), New perspectives on the financial system. London: Croom Helm.
[25]
Woolgar, S. (1991). Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. In J. Lan (Ed.), A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination (pp. 54-83). London: Routledge.

Cited By

View all

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Human-Computer Interaction
Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 18, Issue 1
June 2003
189 pages
ISSN:0737-0024
EISSN:1532-7051
Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

L. Erlbaum Associates Inc.

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 2003
Revised: 28 March 2002
Received: 05 April 2001

Qualifiers

  • Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)0
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 11 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

View Options

View options

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media