This study explores the conditions under which task-related specialization and exposure to variety, as well as concurrent exposure to customer variety in temporary two-member teams impacts performance in last-mile delivery services. In our context, dispatchers represent a decision-making entity responsible for planning delivery routes and assigning drivers to customers, while drivers fill the decision-executing role when servicing customers. On the team level, we propose that teams’ task-related exposure to variety and concurrent exposure to customer variety when performing a focal task is positively associated with performance. For the team member level, we propose that decision-executing team members’ concurrent customer specialization has a negative effect on service performance. Our explanation is that increasing customer specialization intensifies social customer interactions, leading to longer verbal communication, which increases the time to service a customer and, therefore, negatively impacts service performance. One additional argument supporting our social customer interaction aspect is that a decision-makers’ concurrent customer specialization has no significant effect on service performance. Our results highlight the need for organizations to view specialization and variety through the lens of customers rather than treating them as mutually exclusive. Overall, our study identifies new ways to improve service performance in last-mile delivery services through a different and effective allocation of work.
