Tellers Versus Technology in Overall Consumer Satisfaction with Banking Services‪.‬

INTRODUCTION Service encounter satisfaction plays an integral role in the determination of overall satisfaction with the firm by the consumer. "Service encounters are critical moments of truth in which customers often develop indelible impressions of a firm. In fact, the encounter frequently is the service from the customer's point of view" (Bitner, Brown and Meuter 2000, p. 139). Shostack (1985) defines a service encounter as "a period of time during which a consumer directly interacts with a service" (p. 243). This interaction can be either with an employee or with the self-service technology of the company.