The Causal Effect of Digital Interaction and Service Failure on Citizens’ Satisfaction with Routinized Public Services. Evidence from a Vignette Experiment

Although the use of mobile devices and self-service terminals for routinized administrative requests is supposed to reduce the administrative burden placed upon citizens, little is known about how moving from personal citizen-bureaucrat interaction towards digitalized interaction affects citizens’ satisfaction with the public administration. Specifically, we are interested in whether digitalized interaction affects citizens’ satisfaction with service quality. To address these questions we conduct a vignette experiment on a large sample of German citizens (N=1.243), in which we treat the type of citizen-administration interaction (self-service terminal, mobile devices, or human bureaucrat), the type of public service (passport, certificate of good conduct, or welfare benefits), and the occurrence of service failure. Contrary to other studies that consider citizens’ cultural reservations against digital technologies as the main reason why the digitization of public administration is progressing slowly, this study shows that the type of citizen-administration interaction does not affect citizens’ satisfaction with service quality. Instead, we find service failure having the largest effect on citizen satisfaction, regardless of whether the initial service encounter was experienced via self-service terminal, mobile device, or human bureaucrat.