THE EFFECT OF CUSTOMER EMPOWERMENT AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ON MARKETING PERFORMANCE: THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF BRAND COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP

Anber Abraheem Mohammad

doi:10.3846/btp.2020.11617

Abstract

This study aimed at examining the mediating role of brand Community membership on the effect of customer empowerment and customer engagement on marketing performance. The population of the study contained students of universities in the North Region of Jordan. A total of 1320 questionnaires were administered to sample members, and 895 questionnaires were returned completed. Data analysis indicated a significant partial mediation of brand community in the effect of customer empowerment on customer satisfaction but not in the effect of customer engagement and customer loyalty.Interestingly, the results confirmed that employee engagement is more important for organisations to ensure customer loyalty. The effect of customer empowerment on customer satisfaction was mediated by the customer’s membership to the brand community. Thereupon, organisations should ensure put their customers’ engagement as a priority. Further research is required to investigate the predictability of both customer satisfaction and engagement using different samples from several settings.

Highlights

Despite what has been said about empowerment, whether employee empowerment or customer empowerment, this concept does not necessarily result in the desired benefits
Eight hypotheses were proposed in this study to investigate the effect of customer empowerment on customer satisfaction and brand community as well as the effect of customer engagement on customer loyalty
The study suggested that the brand community mediates the effect of customer empowerment on customer satisfaction and the effect of customer engagement on customer loyalty

Summary

Introduction

Despite what has been said about empowerment, whether employee empowerment or customer empowerment, this concept does not necessarily result in the desired benefits. Customers are empowered to make them more involved to get their feedback on products 2018) or to give them control over some aspects of a brand (Cova & Pace, 2006). An advanced practice of customer empowerment refers to the transfer of brand decisions to customers themselves (Pranic & Roehl, 2012). Recent evidence on the importance of customer empowerment was found by Berraies and Hamouda (2018) who revealed a significant impact of customer empowerment on the bank’s financial performance. That impact was significantly mediated by customer satisfaction. The positive effect of customer empowerment on customer satisfaction was detected in the literature (Fuchs & Schreier, 2011; O’Cass & Viet Ngo, 2011)

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