Differentiating Customer Engagement and Customer Participation in Service Marketing: An Abstract

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated correlation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty where the latter ultimately results in both revenue growth and profitability for the (service provider) firm (Zeithaml et al. 2013) (Heskett et al 1997). Fewer, but several, studies have examined the relationship between customer participation and customer satisfaction of service delivery and provider (Lovelock and Young 1979; Zeithaml 1981; Mills and Morris 1986; Benapudi and Leone 2003; Chan et al. 2010; and Wu 2011). Earlier research defined service customer engagement (CE) and service customer participation (CP), where the former was more psychological, where customers think, feel, and trust, and the latter was more behavioral, where customers act and do. This research works to better differentiate these two constructs where Customer Participation has been studied prior and more extensively than Customer Engagement. Being Customer Engagement a behavioral construct, it is easier to measure that Customer Participation, a psychological construct. The premise of this research is to establish a relationship between customer engagement (CE), customer participation (CP), and customer satisfaction (CS) where antecedent CE is necessary for mediator CP which is necessary for outcome CS. Research indicates that customers who perceive more value from their service encounters tend to be more satisfied (Ouschan et al. 2006; Patterson and Smith 2001; Sharma and Patterson 1999) (Chan et al. 2010) and that greater (customer) engagement will be associated with perceptions of greater value received (Vivek et al. 2012). This paper concludes that customers perceive more value when they are engaged; thus, service providers can maximize customer participation effectiveness with engagement. In other words, customers can engage without participating but not (effectively) participate without engaging. Two propositions are posited. Limitations and future research are also discussed such as considering outcomes beyond customer satisfaction such as service quality (SQ), a construct studied heavily by Parasuraman et al. (1985).