Hedonic and Utilitarian Drivers of Customer Engagement

Abstract

Although the notion of customer engagement has been an important topic of ongoing discussion in marketing academia and business practice, still little is known on the impact of customer value that comprises of hedonic and utilitarian dimensions, on customer behavioral manifestations toward the brands or firms that goes beyond purchase. The main purpose of this study is to examine whether and how hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of customer value impact customer engagement across distinct consumer markets. Based on the computer-assisted web interviews with 1,559 consumers in the age of 15-64, descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling are used in this study. Consumers of three distinct product categories such as clothing, beer, and mobile phones are interviewed. Drawing on the behavioral interpretation of customer engagement and means-ends models of customer value, this paper reveals the crucial impact of hedonic and utilitarian values on customer engagement manifested in three forms such as customers’ communication, customer complaints and customer collaboration, offering the holistic perspective on multi-faced nature of customer engagement. The research also uncovers some disparities in the strength of the hedonic and utilitarian drivers of customer engagement across markets. Thus, the current study contributes to the better understanding of the customer-based factors affecting customer engagement and offers managerial implications on designing the effective sets of incentives for mobilizing customer engagement.