The Anatomy of a Personal Service: The Eight Dimensions of 'Personal'

Digitalization enables public organizations to personalize their services, tuning them to the specific situation, abilities, and preferences of the citizens. At the same time, digital services can be experienced as being less personal than face-to-face contact by citizens. The large existing volume of academic literature on personalization mainly represents the service provider perspective. In contrast, in this paper we investigate what makes citizens experience a service as personal. The result are eight dimensions that capture the full range of individual experiences and expectations that citizens expressed in focus groups. These dimensions can serve as a framework for public sector organizations to explore the expectations of citizens of their own services and identify the areas in which they can improve the personal experiences they offer.