“Towards a co-creation framework in the retail banking services industry: Do demographics influence?”

Abstract

Although many firms profess to adopt a customer-centric approach many are yet to embrace the notion that value is not solely created within the boundaries of the firm, that it is created co-jointly with outside parties. As such, value co-creation has increasing importance in modern marketing, impulsed by Service-Dominant Logic. While co-creation is a hot-topic in the marketing literature, services marketing literature recognizes the impact of demographic characteristics in consumer behavior. However, literature analysing the effects of demographics in co-creations models is very scarce.Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine a set of outcomes of co-creation (satisfaction, loyalty and WOM) from a customer perspective. More, this research also analyses the potential moderating effect of demographic characteristics such as gender and age in this co-creative framework.The results show that co-creation directly affects customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and WOM. Co-creation also results in increased levels of customer satisfaction, which in turn mediates the effect of co-creation on customer loyalty and positive WOM. Data also reveal different patterns of behavior depending on gender and age.This paper contributes to the understanding of co-creation from a customer viewpoint. Firms should strive to foster co-creation initiatives as this can lead to increased levels of customer satisfaction, more loyal customers and the possibility of attracting new customers through positive WOM by current customers. Customers databases must be segmented for higher levels of marketing campaigns efficiency.