Kristina Heinonen

A Customer-dominant Logic of Service

Purpose – The paper seeks to introduce to a new perspective on the roles of customers and companies in creating value by outlining a customer‐based approach to service. The customers logic is examined in‐depth as being the foundation of a customer‐dominant (CD) marketing and business logic.Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that both the goods‐ and service‐dominant logic are provider‐dominant. Contrasting the provider‐dominant logic with CD logic, the paper examines the creation of service value from the perspectives of value‐in‐use, the customers own context, and the customers experience of service.Findings – Moving from a provider‐dominant logic to a CD logic uncovered five major challenges to service marketers: company involvement, company control in co‐creation, visibility of value creation, scope of customer experience, and character of customer experience.Research limitations/implications – The paper is exploratory. It presents and discusses a new perspective and suggests implication...

Reconceptualizing customer perceived value: the value of time and place

Considering the empowered customer interacting with technology‐based self‐services, temporal and spatial access can be argued to influence service delivery. However, service management models have not considered the value of the service delivery at various locations and time frames not controlled by the service provider. Consequently, by arguing that time and location are explicit value dimensions, this paper investigates the importance of time and location and contrasts them to traditional value dimensions. A conceptual model of customer perceived value is proposed and empirically investigated. By linking value and quality models, customer perceived value is conceptualized as a function of benefit and sacrifice of technical, functional, temporal and spatial value dimensions. The empirical findings indicate that time and location are perceived as important value dimensions and that they are even more important dimensions than outcome and process elements. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Customer dominant value formation in service

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend current discussions of value creation and propose a customer dominant value perspective. The point of origin in a customer‐dominant marketing logic (C‐D logic) is the customer, rather than the service provider, interaction or the system. The focus is shifted from the companys service processes involving the customer, to the customers multi‐contextual value formation, involving the company.Design/methodology/approach – Value formation is contrasted to earlier views on the companys role in value creation in a conceptual analysis focusing on five central aspects. Implications of the proposed characteristics of value formation compared to earlier approaches are put forward.Findings – The paper highlights earlier hidden aspects on the role of a service for the customer. It is proposed that value is not always an active process of creation; instead, value is embedded and formed in the highly dynamic and multi‐contextual reality and life of the customer. This l...

Temporal and spatial e‐service value

Purpose – To develop a conceptual framework for temporal and spatial e‐service value.Design/methodology/approach – In the empirical study, the temporal and spatial value of e‐services is qualitatively explored. Positioned within service research, a conceptualisation of customer perceived value based on benefit and sacrifice of technical, functional, temporal and spatial dimensions is used.Findings – The qualitative study identifies subdimensions of temporal and spatial value. In addition to benefits such as access and flexibility, these subdimensions also involve aspects related to temporal and spatial sacrifice. The subdimensions indicate the versatility of the dimensions. Another finding is the interdependence between the benefit and sacrifice of service value.Research limitations/implications – Extends prior research by qualitatively describing benefit and sacrifice of temporal and spatial value. Presents a conceptual model of temporal and spatial e‐service value. Future research needs to quantitativel...

Customer-dominant logic: foundations and implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the theoretical and practical implications of adopting customer-dominant logic (CDL) of service, focusing on how firms can become involved in the customers’ context. Design/methodology/approach – Inspired by the conceptual discussion of service logic and service-dominant logic, this paper focuses on the conceptual underpinnings of CDL. CDL is contrasted with other service perspectives in marketing; CDL is a marketing and business perspective dominated by customer-related aspects instead of products, service, systems, costs or growth. It is grounded in understanding customer logic and how firms’ offerings can become embedded in customers’ lives/businesses. Findings – The conceptual analysis challenges the prevailing assumptions of key phenomena in service research, including interaction, co-creation, service value and service. The paper presents five essential foundations of CDL: marketing as a business perspective, customer logic as the central concept, of...

“Futurizing” smart service: implications for service researchers and managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to craft a future research agenda to advance smart service research and practice. Smart services are delivered to or via intelligent objects that feature awareness and connectivity. For service researchers and managers, one of the most fascinating aspects of smart service provision is that the connected object is able to sense its own condition and its surroundings and thus allows for real-time data collection, continuous communication and interactive feedback. Design/methodology/approach – This article is based on discussions in the workshop on “Fresh perspectives on technology in service” at the International Network of Service Researchers on September 26, 2014 at CTF, Karlstad, Sweden. The paper summarizes the discussion on smart services, adds an extensive literature review, provides examples from business practice and develops a structured approach to new research avenues. Findings – We propose that smart services vary on their individual level of autonomous dec...

Developing service research - paving the way to transdisciplinary research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how service, as an interdisciplinary area of research, can increase its potential for transdisciplinary contributions from the perspective of what signifies intra-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research. Design/methodology/approach – The essay first discusses common perspectives on the service concept before presenting a review on what signifies intra-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research. The emerging theoretical framework is followed by a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for service research in making interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary theoretical contributions. Findings – The research provides a typological framework for understanding intra-, multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary service research and, implications related to how service research contributions can become increasingly inter- and transdisciplinary. Originality/value – The paper contributes to widening the scope of service research by focussing on how ...

Customer Engagement in a Big Data World

This paper aims to propose that the literature on customer engagement has emphasized the benefits of customer engagement to the firm and, to a large extent, ignored the customers’ perspective. By drawing upon co-creation and other literature, this paper attempts to alleviate this gap by proposing a strategic framework that aligns both the customer and firm perspectives in successfully creating engagement that generates value for both the customer and the bottom line.,A strategic framework is proposed that includes the necessary firm resources, data, process, timeline and goals for engagement, and captures customers’ motives, situational factors and preferred engagement styles.,The authors argue that sustainability of data-driven customer engagement requires a dynamic and iterative value generation process involving customers recognizing the value of engagement behaviours and firm’s ability to capture and passing value back to customers.,This paper proposes a dynamic strategic value-creation framework that comprehensively captures both the customer and firm perspectives to data-driven customer engagement.

Invisible value formation: a netnography in retail banking

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore value formation in the customer-bank relationship outside the line of visibility of service encounters. The customers own context has been overlooked by the bank marketing literature as it is traditionally focused on value created by the service process and outcome. Design/methodology/approach – Positioned within the customer dominant logic, a netnography was conducted to explore how bank relationships are realised in customers’ own contexts and experiences. A total of 579 postings from discussions of retail banking in 18 online communities were collected and analysed. Findings – The study uncovered four factors of invisible bank service value experienced by customers: shared moral value, responsibility value, relationship value, and heritage value. Research limitations/implications – The study conceptualises bank service value as realised in the customers’ own contexts and thus highlights previously hidden sources of value in banking. The findings can be...

Multiple perspectives on customer relationships

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and conceptualize customer relationships in the financial service sector, focussing on three aspects of customer-bank relationships: the financial service provider perspective, the customer-provider dyad, and the customer context. Design/methodology/approach – Through a short review of the eight papers included in this special issue, this paper illustrates different aspects of customer relationships. It explores customer value formation in the context of banking services, the dynamics and strength of customer relationships, and strategies for financial service provision and consumer trust. Findings – Customer relationships in the financial service sector are increasingly dynamic and unpredictable. This may be due to both activities within the control of financial service providers, such as strategies for service provision, but is more often attributable to factors beyond the control of providers. What empowered customers are doing in their own settings in...