The service attributes of robo-advisors: a choice-based conjoint analysis
Abstract
Purpose
As an alternative to hiring financial specialists or investment consultants, robo-advisors offer financially automated investment services. This study aims to investigate how robo-advisors' service attributes, risk attitude and financial self-efficacy influence customers' choice preferences of adopting robo-advisors.
Design/methodology/approach
Two hundred fifty-one online surveys were used to collect data, and choice-based conjoint analysis was conducted.
Findings
Results show that increasing annual fees negatively impact customers' choice preferences. Promotion, general investment education and additional human assistance have a positive impact. Furthermore, risk-seeking and risk-averse customers require more human assistance than risk-neutral customer and customers with high levels of financial self-efficacy prefer more general investment education and additional human assistance than those with lower levels. In addition, customers in the older age group prefer promotion, general investment education and additional human assistance, while wealthy customers prefer lower annual fees, higher general investment education and more additional human assistance compared to middle-class and low-income groups.
Originality/value
This study contributes to robo-advisor providers to provide appropriate service attributes for each customer group.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Since acceptance of this article, the following author(s) have updated their affiliation: “Jian-Ren Hou” is at the “Center for Innovative FinTech Business Models, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan”.
This research is partially supported by the Higher Education SPROUT Project and Center for Innovative FinTech Business Models of National Cheng Kung University, sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan. The authors would like to thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and insightful suggestions, which have significantly improved the quality of the manuscript.
Citation
Hou, J.-R., Li, Y.-H. and Kankham, S. (2023), "The service attributes of robo-advisors: a choice-based conjoint analysis", Information Technology & People, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-04-2023-0375
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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