Process Of Customer Engagement Research Articles

A data‐driven approach to improve online consumer subscriptions by combining data visualization and machine learning methods

AbstractEffective online consumer research helps companies on defining a successful strategy to increase user loyalty and shape brand engagement. Digital innovation introduced a dramatic change in businesses, particularly in the online news industry. Content consumers have a wide offer across different channels which increase the digital challenge for online news media companies to retain their readers and convert them into online subscribers. Furthermore, digital news publishers often strive to balance revenue sources in online business models. Thus, this study fills a gap in the literature on media consumer research by proposing a data‐driven approach that combines two machine learning (ML) models to allow managers dynamically improve their marketing and editorial strategies. Firstly, the authors present an online user profiling to identify consumer segments based on the interplay between several engagement’ variables substantiated in the literature research. Second, as few studies have explored the factors influencing users' intention to pay for such services, the eXtreme Gradient Boosting ML algorithm identifies the predictors of consumer's willingness to pay. Third, a dashboard presents the key performance indicators across the audience funnel. Thus, practical implications and business suggestions are presented in a two‐fold strategy to maximize revenue from digital subscriptions and advertising. Findings provide new insights into an engagement approach and the relation to acquire a digital subscription in online content platforms. We believe that the provided recommendations are potentially useful to help marketing and editorial teams to manage their customer engagement process across the funnel in a more efficient way.

How do customers engage in social media-based brand communities: The moderator role of the brand's country of origin?

Across the globe, companies increasingly use social media-based brand communities (SMBBC) to facilitate customer engagement (CE). This study clarifies the relationship between brand trust and CE in SMBBC, which is often inconsistent in previous literature. Drawing on the uses and gratifications theory, we examine the motivations that drive customers' active and passive engagement behaviors. Additionally, this study employs multi-group analysis to compare the differences in the customer engagement process concerning the brand's country of origin. The empirical results demonstrate that brand trust is an antecedent to customer engagement in a long-term relationship. Brand affiliation, entertainment, and investigation prompt customers' active and passive engagement behaviors; the opportunity-seeking only encourages the passive engagement, but the motivation of conversation prompts neither active nor passive behaviors of the customers. Notably, there is no significant difference in Chinese customer engagement between domestic and foreign brands on Sina Weibo. The research enriches the understanding of customer engagement in SMBBC and provides valuable insights for international brands keen on the Chinese market.

Social media customer behavioral engagement and loyalty among hotel patrons: does customer involvement matter?

PurposeDespite wide acknowledgment in research of the benefits of customer engagement to firms, the customer engagement process and how it leads to positive marketing outcomes remains underexplored. Extending existing research, this paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model that outlines the effect of passive and active customer behavioral engagement on customer loyalty and the role of customer involvement in the process, as both an antecedent and a moderator.Design/methodology/approachData collected from 362 millennials in Johannesburg, South Africa through a scenario-based experiment was submitted to a partial least square structural equation modeling and moderated-mediation analyses after examining the manipulation effectiveness of the experimental scenarios. The unit of analyses is hotel patrons.FindingsThe findings include customer involvement is a significant predictor of passive and active customer behavioral engagement both of which consequently influence customer loyalty; customer involvement moderates the effect of passive engagement on active engagement; and not only is passive engagement indirectly related to customer loyalty through active engagement, the indirect relationship is the strongest at the highest level of customer involvement.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study provides notable insights into the relationship between customer involvement, customer behavioral engagement and customer loyalty. However, there is need for further studies to validate our model across different brand categories and different social media platforms as well as in offline settings with a more diverse sample because the scope of this study is limited to millennials that use Facebook brand communities.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the customer engagement literature by rationalizing and demonstrating the importance of customer involvement as a precursor of the behavioral engagement process (comprising the passive and the active components) and loyalty among hotel patrons.

User-entrepreneurship and innovation: does customer involvement and learning orientation matter?

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the process of innovation in firms founded by user-entrepreneurs. It also empirically investigates the role of customer involvement and user-entrepreneurs’ learning goal orientation in the innovation process.Design/methodology/approachA survey design is used to collect data from entrepreneurs managing small businesses. A total of 255 entrepreneurs responded to the survey questionnaire. The partial least square structural equation model was used to test the measurement and structural model.FindingsResults suggest a positive association of user-entrepreneurship with innovation and customer involvement. Results also confirmed that customer involvement mediates the relationship between user-entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition, results suggest that the higher learning orientation (LO) of user-entrepreneurs plays a vital role in innovation by strengthening the relationship between user-entrepreneurship and customer involvement.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focuses on small entrepreneurial firms with less than equal to or less than 250 employees. The results may not be generalizable to larger user-entrepreneurial firms. Also, this study is based on American entrepreneurs. Therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other countries.Practical implicationsEvidence for the role of customer involvement and LO in the innovation process can be used by entrepreneurs and small business owners in hiring and training decisions. Also, the findings suggest the important role played by customers in the innovation process. Firms can use this insight to involve their customers in the product development process to secure better innovation outcomes.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the innovation and entrepreneurship literature by emphasizing the critical role of customer networks in user-entrepreneurs’ innovation performance. It offers a process model that offers empirical evidence supporting the positive role of customer involvement in new ventures. It highlights the role of the LO of user-entrepreneurs in the customer engagement process.

Unraveling the dynamic and contingency mechanism between service experience and customer engagement with luxury hotel brands

This study unravels the dynamic and contingency mechanism between service experience and customer engagement with luxury hotel brands by investigating a multi-step model linking these two variables, in which emotional attachment and relational quality constructs (i.e., brand satisfaction, brand trust, and brand commitment) act as a bridge, while customer involvement acts as a moderator. Based on a self-administered survey dataset of 249 international tourists who are customers of luxury hotel brands, partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that all proposed hypotheses are supported. As such, this study discovers and clarifies the nature and dynamic mechanism underpinning the co-creation and reciprocation process of customer engagement with luxury hotels. In particular, the positive service experience is found to contribute to customer engagement via emotional attachment and relational marketing. Furthermore, the moderating role of customer involvement in the luxury hotel setting is confirmed. • Unravel the mediating roles of emotional attachment, relational quality on the service experience-customer engagement nexus. • Investigate the moderating/contingency role of customer involvement on the formation of customer brand engagement. • Propose a multi-step process of value co-creation and reciprocation between customers and luxury hotel brands. • Provide suggestions to win over customers’ hearts and minds, achieving desired outcomes of customer brand engagement.

How Effective Gamified Technics will lead to Customer Engagement?

Gamification approach recently has sparked interest among researchers as a new trend of increasing customer engagement (CE) in business-to-consumer (B2C) contexts. However, there is a dearth of exploratory specifically in Iran Market. This study aims to provide deeper insights into process of customer engagement by analysis of key factors in effectiveness of gamification. In order to achieve this aim, two main research phase were planned:1) detailed literature review on current studies in this scope and 2) Exploratory semi-structured interview with experts of gamification in small and medium enterprise (SMEs) in information technology (IT) industry in Iran. The synthesis of findings identified there are many game mechanics uses in designing games, which three key factors of feedback, gift and challenge have found to be more effective studies that confirm the effectiveness of gamified mechanism in process of CE, in our sample based on gamified engagement mechanism. Implication of this study may help practitioners in developing more effective gamified CE strategies.

A meta‐analysis of customer engagement behaviour

AbstractCustomer engagement behaviour has emerged as an influential concept in marketing and refers to customers' behavioural manifestation towards a firm originating from motivational drivers. To provide a comprehensive and generalisable picture of this concept, this study provides a meta‐analysis integrating data of 196 effect sizes of 184 publications with a sample of 146,380. The findings reveal engagement through two pathways: organic pathway as relationship‐oriented (perceived quality, perceived value and relationship quality) and promoted pathway as firm‐initiated (functional and experiential initiatives). Moderator analysis indicates that the influence of the two pathways on engagement depends on engagement context (online vs. offline), industry type (service vs. manufacturing) and product type (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and cultural context. Findings support attitudinal engagement–loyalty and behavioural engagement–firm performance linkage. Study results provide new insight into various engagement approaches and their relationship to each other. The authors offer recommendations to help marketers manage their customer engagement process more effectively.

Hedonic and Utilitarian Values Behind Engagement of Online Consumers

In the hyper-competitive Indian airline industry, the low-cost carriers as well as full-service airlines are in dire need of innovative marketing strategies to engage their customers. To understand the dynamics behind the process of customer engagement, the purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the lived experience of consumers about their online air-ticket bookings experiences. In total, 60 frequent air travellers were approached to participate in the study and the self-completion diary method was incorporated to record their ticket booking experiences. The responses recorded in the diaries were analyzed on the basis of their content from which eight themes were derived. The findings bring forth the importance of hedonic experiential values along with utilitarian experiential values toward the engagement of customers during the online air-ticket booking process. The current study is one of the pioneers in conceptualization of customer engagement as a third-order construct by uncovering the sub-dimensions of the second order factors—utilitarian and hedonic experiential values.

Tangible Service Automation: Decomposing the Technology-Enabled Engagement Process (TEEP) for Augmented Reality

The rise of augmented reality (AR) technology, which overlays digital content to alter customers’ views of a physical service setting, using mobile and wearable computing, drives the digital automation of physical services. In particular, it promises to achieve tangibility even in service encounters delivered in digital formats. However, customer engagement with AR is falling short of expectations. Managers lack an integrated framework of AR service automation and therefore tend to focus on the technology rather than on the process of customer engagement with AR service automation. To address this problem, the current study proposes a technology-enabled engagement process that integrates multiple stages of customer engagement, as a service-centric process. To establish that engagement with AR service automation requires the inclusion of service tangibility, as part of the process, the authors decompose the steps of interactive service engagement, the spatial presence of the service, customers’ emotional and cognitive engagement with the service, and perceived value-in-use, which lead to emergent behavioral forms of engagement.

Evolution in Education: Chatbots

Artificial intelligence (AI) programs that simulate interactive human conversation, known as Chatbots, are one of the ongoing trends in the global market. Companies adopt Chatbots in order to offer better services to their customers. Businesses have realized that they are able to enhance the process of customer engagement and operational efficiency through Chatbot technology. Furthermore, most of us have experienced communication of this form in many aspects of our everyday life. This paper examines how Chatbots have evolved over the years, what the advantages and disadvantages of using them are and tries to explain the rise taking place nowadays. Subsequently, it explores the potential of applying this technology in educational settings. Personalized and adaptive learning seems to be imperative today and Chatbot technology can offer invaluable services towards that direction. Finally, it investigates the possibility of using them as virtual teaching assistants relieving teachers from the burden of repetitive tasks and helping them focus more on providing quality education to their students.

A dynamic framework for managing customer engagement on social media

Social media have become pervasive communication tools, creating connections and opportunities for customer engagement. They have redefined simple dyadic interactions between customers and marketers, transforming them into more complex interactions between multiple groups of actors, including customers, organisations, stakeholders, and non-customers. In recognition of the remodelling of customer engagement, scholars have called for additional research addressing the role of engagement in multi-actor ecosystems. Our study seeks to address this gap by advancing the understanding of the process of customer engagement on social media and proposing an empirically grounded framework with appropriate measures to assess customer engagement. Thirty-two interviews were conducted to explore the process of establishing and maintaining customer engagement on social media from the perspectives of social media marketing practitioners and users. This study proposes a dynamic framework addressing four distinct levels of customer engagement on social media, in addition to identifying appropriate measurements for each level.

Exploring Social Customer Relationship Management Adoption in Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

With the emergence of social media, customer relationship management has undergone noticeable changes and gained a great deal of attention from researchers and practitioners in recent years. In this paper, we provide additional insights into how intensively business-to-customer micro, small and medium-sized enterprises adopt social customer relationship management. Based on the literature review and insights from interviews with six micro, small and medium-sized enterprise owners/managers, we developed a conceptual research model that integrates the antecedents, intensity of social customer relationship management adoption, and performance outcomes. For the intensity of social customer relationship management adoption, we applied process-based conceptualization consisting of the customer engagement process and customer data management process. Then we empirically tested a conceptual research model by using data collected in a survey of 119 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Slovenia. We found that not all antecedents are equally relevant to both processes of the intensity of social customer relationship management adoption. Additionally, we found that the intensity of social customer relationship management adoption has a positive effect on customer relationship performance. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations for further research and offer practical implications for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises considering social customer relationship management adoption.

Social media, customer engagement and advocacy

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how social media facilitates the process of customer engagement in quick service restaurants (QSRs). Customers characterized as transactional customers, loyal customers, delighted customers or fans, based on the degree of relational exchange and emotional bonds, are expected to vary in their propensity to engage in advocacy and co-create value.Design/methodology/approachHypotheses linking the antecedents of customer engagement to advocacy are empirically investigated with data from the Twitter social media network for the top 50 US QSRs. Multiple regression analysis is carried out with proxies for advocacy as the dependent variable and connection effort, interaction effort, satisfaction, retention effort, calculative commitment and affective commitment as independent variables.FindingsThe results indicate that retention effort and calculative commitment of customers are the most important factors influencing advocacy. Efforts to retain customers using social media communication increase advocacy. Greater calculative commitment also increases advocacy. Affective commitment mediates the relationship between calculative commitment and advocacy.Practical implicationsFostering retention and calculative commitment by using social media communication engenders loyalty and customers become advocates. Calculative commitment fosters affective commitment, turning customers into fans who are delighted as well as loyal, enhancing advocacy.Originality/valueThis study uniquely investigates the relationship between the antecedents of customer engagement and advocacy. It develops the theory and conducts an empirical analysis with actual social media network data for a specific industry where usage of the network is widely prevalent. It confirms that calculative commitment influences advocacy. Calculative commitment not only has a direct effect but also has an indirect effect through affective commitment on advocacy in the QSR context. Further, social media efforts by QSRs to retain customers encourage advocacy. Other customer engagement antecedents do not directly influence advocacy.

Promoting customer engagement: A new trend in utility regulation

AbstractThis paper traces a new development in regulation that encourages utilities to engage more directly with their customers. We make four contributions: First, we perform a comprehensive analysis of how regulators are using customer engagement, and offer a simple model for understanding different customer engagement initiatives. Second, we review assessments of customer engagement. We find that there arenoquantitative, empirically robust assessments of the effectiveness of customer engagement as a regulatory tool. Third, we develop two detailed case studies of an energy regulator and a water regulator that are in the forefront of customer engagement efforts. We find that there is no direct link between the engagement strategy used and the economic incentives received by a firm. Finally, we propose a framework for improving the customer engagement process. The new framework relies on microeconomics, modern tools of program evaluation, and supplying the regulated firm with direct incentives to engage with the customer.

Antecedents and consequences of the process of customer engagement through social media: an integrated conceptual framework

Over the last decades, the internet and IT enabled services have risen tremendously in importance. The ways through which people exchange information and how individuals communicate with each other have also changed enormously over the last years. In this regard, social networks have become gradually more central to sharing and spreading information and therefore companies are realising the opportunity of providing information to their customers by establishing social network information services (SNIS). This study is an attempt to formulate the process of customer engagement through social media channels and to find out its relationship with various antecedents and consequences. This study will enhance the understanding of the concept with better conceptual framework and give insights to marketing managers to make their marketing strategies in social media.

Antecedents and consequences of the process of customer engagement through social media: an integrated conceptual framework

Antecedents and consequences of the process of customer engagement through social media: an integrated conceptual framework

Brand Equity through Customer Engagement in Social Media: A Critical Review

In the context of present competitive environment, brands are the crucial drivers regarding product purchase, revenue and profit generation. Hence, Brands constitute an important intangible asset for the firms. Simultaneously, with the advent of internet, IT services and social media network information services, consumers are turning away from traditional sources of communication such as press, radio, television as used by various companies in past. Now a days, consumers take their decisions largely based on their trust on friends, family and online product reviews, and all of these are found in the social media network environment. Similarly, various authors highlighted brand identity approach for creating brand equity as employee constitute the original source of brand equity. Thus, present research gives important theoretical insights on the development of brand equity through customer engagement in social media. This research tries to assimilate the five dimensions of Aaker's well-known conceptual framework of brand equity with the process of customer engagement in social media along with brand identity approach through employee engagement and thus, an integrated conceptual framework has been developed.

Unleashing the power of loyalty programs – The next 30 years

Loyalty programs came into existence 30 years ago. This article provides an overview of the origins and significance of the airline frequent flyer programs for competitive advantage and subsequent adoption across various industry travel verticals. The future of successful loyalty programs will be contingent on leveraging data augmented with advanced analytics to gain valuable insight to enhance the customer engagement process, retain and reward profitable customers.

Customer Engagement: A Framework for Assessing Customer-Brand Relationships: The Case of the Restaurant Industry

Customer-brand relationships do not just exist, they develop over time and through multiple service experiences, yet the literature typically discusses customer-brand relationships as being a largely static phenomenon. Very limited attention has been given over to the service evaluation processes of customers who are new to a service brand, as compared to customers who are experienced with the service brand. Research additionally continues to rely on the historically dominant customer satisfaction paradigm as the most effective method with which to evaluate service experiences at the expense of other relational mediators such as involvement, calculative commitment, affective commitment, and trust. This limits the extent to which a more complete and dynamic understanding of the nature of customer-brand relationships and the processes by which engagement with the brand and ultimately loyalty to the brand may be fostered for customers in different consumption stages. A phenomenological investigation into the process of customer engagement, as revealed through customers' restaurant dining experiences, is presented to examine these issues. The data for this study was provided by five focus groups and nine in-depth interviews. The results of the study indicate that the role of relational mediators differs across new and repeat purchase segments of customers. These findings have important implications for the management of customer-brand relationships amongst different customer segments and for the development of operational strategies to improve service provision within the restaurant industry.

Customer-focused communication: The key to total quality success

The success rate of total quality programs in the U.S. is running at about 20 to 25 percent. This poor showing is not a result of not knowing what to do but of how to do it. The one universal barrier is the lack of communication skills to conduct customer-focused communication. In a high-tech world this is ironic because human communication technology has advanced in the past 15 to 20 years at about the same rate as computer technology! This paper provides an overview of the customer engagement process and the appropriate communication technologies at each stage. Perhaps more importantly it points out that if communication productivity and communication quality have not improved in an organization by several hundred percent in the past decade, then very outdated communication skills are being employed.