Customer Value Co-creation Behavior in Times of COVID-19: The Case of the Mexican Food Service Delivery Ecosystem

Abstract

The global pandemic caused by covid-19 forced many countries worldwide to establish severe restrictions on mobility and access to numerous services. Mexico was no exception, and especially food service underwent radical changes that forced businesses to move into or expand food service delivery. Not only organizations suffered this abrupt change, but customers also had to venture into this modality, which was unknown or barely explored for many. Faced with this scenario, organizations showed a lack of knowledge about the customer role that positively contributes to the joint achievement of the expected benefits during the value exchange. This research aims to verify if Customer Participation Behavior (cpb) and Customer Citizenship Behavior (ccb) are related to Customer Value Co-creation Behavior (cvcb) generation in the Mexican food service delivery ecosystem. Through a quantitative research, online surveys based on the cvcb scale of Yi and Gong (2013) were applied. Besides, a hierarchical component modeling is used as a statistical instrument. The results highlight that both cpb and ccb are positively and significantly related to cvcb, being responsible behavior and information sharing the variables most related to cpb. As for ccb, recommendation and helping other customers are the variables with the highest relationship. These findings encourage food establishment managers to reinforce specific actions in order to develop co-creation behavior among their customers, and therefore meet the challenges posed to this service modality.