Jana Bowden

The Process of customer engagement : a conceptual framework

Traditional measures of customer satisfaction have been criticized for failing to capture the depth of customer responses to service performance. This study seeks to redirect satisfaction research toward an approach that encompasses an understanding of the role of commitment, involvement, and trust in the creation of engaged and loyal customers. A conceptual framework for segmenting customer-brand relationships based on the extent to which customers are either new or repeat purchase customers of a specific service brand is proposed. The approach provides a deeper and more complete understanding of the nature of customer-brand relationships and the processes by which engagement may be developed and fostered among differing customer segments.

Engaging the student as a customer : a relationship marketing approach

Increasingly organizations are recognizing the value of establishing close relationships with their customers. Despite this, research has not deeply explored how the intangible aspects of relational exchange such as customer satisfaction, as well as affective commitment, calculative commitment, and trust, combine to determine loyalty in the higher-education sector. This is in part a result of reluctance within the sector to view students as customers of institutional brands. This research uses a structural equation modeling approach and a sample of 474 students to examine, first, the determinants of loyalty within the higher-education sector and, second, the role of relationship strength as a moderator of those determinants. The results indicate that student loyalty was most strongly determined by psychological attachment, and a sense of belonging to the brand. Student satisfaction, while a contributing determinant, alone was insufficient in generating loyalty. The results also indicated that students rejected the notion of loyalty determined by inertia and high switching costs. In addition, trust was not found to be a strong determinant of recommendation or return. Importantly, while relationship strength has been found to determine loyalty in other service contexts, the drivers of loyalty remained the same despite the strength of the relationship that students perceived that they had with their institution. The findings of this study suggest the need for a more comprehensive, involved, and proactive strategy to developing, managing, and maintaining the student-university relationship. The study also encourages the sector to adopt a relationship marketing approach to the management of higher-education services.

Service relationships and the customer disengagement – engagement conundrum

Abstract Emergent research on customer engagement has focused on enhancing engagement within service relationships. Less attention has been given to how and why customers disengage from their relationships, and the potential interplay between engagement and disengagement has not yet been explored within the marketing literature. This study presents the findings from a qualitative exploration of the concept of customer disengagement, its initiating triggers, nature and the process by which it unfolds within functional/utilitarian (F/U) and participative/co-creative services (P/C). Rather than being mutually exclusive, it finds that engagement and disengagement are highly connected and that prior levels of engagement significantly influenced customers’ subsequent propensities to disengage. Specifically, customers’ propensity towards disengagement was higher within services considered F/U in nature and lower within services of a more P/C nature. In addition, the extent to which customers disengaged from their relationship was strongly determined by their prior levels of engagement with weak engagement for F/U services and strong engagement for P/C services. Relationships in the F/U category were subsequently transactional and volatile when compared to relationships within the P/C category that were comparatively emotionally bonded and enduring.

Engagement valence duality and spillover effects in online brand communities

Purpose Online brand communities (OBCs) are an effective avenue for brands to engage consumers. While engaging with the brand, consumers simultaneously interact with other OBC members; thus engaging with multiple, interrelated engagement objects concurrently. The purpose of this paper is to explore both positively and negatively valenced consumer engagement with multiple engagement objects, the interplay between these, and the spillover effect from consumers’ engagement with the OBC to their engagement with the brand. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with OBC members of a luxury accessory brand, a constant comparative method was adopted using axial and selective coding procedures. The objective was to understand the nature of participants’ engagement with the brand, the OBC, and the interplay between individuals’ engagement with these objects. The coding framework and resultant interpretive frameworks address engagement valence, outcomes, and direction. Findings This study illustrates consumer expressions of consumers’ positively and negatively valenced engagement with a focal brand, and with the OBC. Further, it demonstrates the interplay (spillover effect) that occurs between consumers’ engagement with the OBC, to their engagement with the brand. While the existence of positively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to further enhance consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement accumulation effect), negatively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to reduce consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement detraction effect). Originality/value While consumer engagement has been recognized to have both positive and negative manifestations, this study demonstrates that consumers’ engagement valence may differ across interrelated engagement objects (i.e. the brand and the OBC). Further, we demonstrate the existence of engagement spillover effects from the OBC to the brand for both positively and negatively valenced engagement.

Identifying the initial target consumer for innovations : an integrative approach

Purpose – To assist marketing management in the identification and targeting of consumer innovators for novel products by selectively reviewing and integrating three separate streams of research, namely, trait theory, utility‐awareness theory and contemporary cognitive theory.Design/methodology/approach – A range of traditional and contemporary research concerned with the identification of consumer innovators is selectively reviewed and critiqued to enhance marketing managements ability to identify and target the consumer innovator segment. This research, which is addressed under three main sections: personal characteristics, utility‐awareness and cognitive structures, is then integrated to provide management with a more comprehensive approach by which to identify and target consumer innovators. Particular emphasis is placed on the contribution of recent cognitive theories.Findings – The trait dependent approaches in particular, are found to be of limited usefulness in that they identify consumer innovat...

A Multi-Valenced Perspective on Consumer Engagement Within a Social Service

The literature on customer engagement has focused on its positive valence at the expense of its negative manifestations. This study seeks to address this gap by exploring how positive, disengaged, and negative valences of engagement operate within the social service sector. Focus groups are used to create a multidimensional model exploring how different customer engagement valences operate through affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions, and in relation to two objects (service community and service provider). This approach provides a new and expanded view of customer engagement, and the process by which multiple valences of engagement manifest within a focal service relationship.

Exploring customer engagement valences in the social services

Purpose Minimal attention is given to the negative valences of customer engagement and how they manifest in ways that detract from service value. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the meaning and conceptual dimensions of disengagement and negative engagement in conjunction with positive engagement. It explores how three valences of engagement manifest towards dual objects: the service community and the focal service organisation. This exploration is based within a new and novel social service context. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach using (four) focus groups is used. Findings A conceptual model of customer engagement is derived from the groups that include strongly held and positive customer engagement; passive, yet negatively orientated customer disengagement; and active and destructive negative customer engagement. Positive customer engagement is found to be directed at the service community object, whereas customer disengagement and negative engagement are directed at the focal service organisation object. A spillover effect is also revealed whereby negative engagement with the focal service organisation detracts from customers’ positive engagement within their service community. This suggests that engagement within a social service is multifaceted: several engagement valences may exist within one service relationship. It also suggests that these engagement valences are interrelated. Originality/value This is the first paper to apply three valences of engagement within the one focal relationship and examine how they manifest towards two objects, providing a unique perspective of how different interactions within the service ecosystem can influence engagement.

Earning Customer Loyalty: The Role of Satisfaction, Trust, Delight, Commitment and Involvement

Relationship marketing theory emphasizes the importance of developing and maintaining customer-provider relationships. Strong customer relationships evolve over time and through repeated encounters. Through this process both parties learn from and adjust to each other, commitment and trust develop, and satisfactory experiences serve to reinforce customer loyalty. It is critical therefore that service providers understand how these relationships develop. The purpose of this study is to develop and test a relational model of customer loyalty in the context of a high involvement, high contact service. Specifically, we develop hypotheses relative to the impact of satisfaction, trust, delight arousal, delight pleasure, calculative commitment, affective commitment and involvement on loyalty. As an aside, we additionally consider the moderating role of consumption experience in the development of loyalty.