Increased Customer Participation Research Articles

Gen Z's Path to Brand Loyalty in Photo Studios: The Influence of Brand Experience, Community, and Engagement

The photography industry, particularly photo studios, is undergoing a significant transformation due to the development of digital technology and social media. Generation Z, as a digital generation, interacts with photography in unique ways, making brand community, brand experience and customer engagement increasingly relevant for building strong relationships with photo studios. This study aims to determine and analyze Generation Z's loyalty to photo studios, focusing on the mediating role of customer participation behavior and customer citizenship behavior. This study uses a quantitative approach using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the relationship between latent variables. Data was collected through questionnaires distributed to Generation Z consumers in Indonesia. The findings show that brand experience and customer engagement significantly increase customer participation and citizenship behavior, which in turn strengthen customer loyalty. However, brand community does not directly influence citizenship behavior or customer loyalty, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach in building customer loyalty. These results have important implications for photo studios, indicating that creating positive brand experiences and increasing customer engagement are critical to fostering customer loyalty, especially among Generation Z. Photo studios should focus on improving these areas to build a stronger and more loyal customer base.

Social proof: empowering social commerce through social validation

Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of consumer risk appetite, biases (specifically negative recency bias), and the importance of reviews in enhancing information quality. By analyzing these variables, the authors gain insights into their role in enriching the overall information spectrum available to consumers. The findings contribute to a better understanding of how risk appetite, biases and consumer reviews shape the quality of information. Design/methodology/approach The questionnaire assessed the relationship between dependent and independent variables by asking participants to rate their experiences in relevant scenarios. Variance-based structural equation modeling with the ADANCO program was used to examine the data. ADANCO software is used explicitly for variance-based structural equation modeling. To evaluate research models and test hypotheses, partial least square path modeling is used. Findings The efficiency of reviews and ratings is greatly influenced by consumer risk appetite. Businesses should focus on clients who are willing to take risks and balance positive and negative feedback. It is essential to comprehend how customers understand reviews. Credibility is increased by taking biases into account and encouraging unbiased criticism. Promoting thorough reviews strengthens influence. Monitoring and making use of these elements improve online reputation and commercial success. Research limitations/implications The research has limitations due to the simplicity of the attributes taken into account and the requirement for a larger sample size. Overcoming barriers to promote consistent client feedback is essential, and tailored emails can help with assessment generation. Increased customer participation in writing evaluations can be achieved by removing obstacles and highlighting the advantages of participation. Originality/value Businesses and buyers rely on this “organically” generated content as the basis of their promotional strategy and buying decisions. Most of the research is related to consumer reviews, their behavior and the importance of social validation. However, some critical aspects related to this need further investigation.

A study on lender participation in peer to peer lending

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the transformation expectations and well-being of lenders as a consequence of participation in peer-to-peer (p2p) lending in India. The study tested the influence of transformation expectations on well-being, social connectedness on transformation expectations and the influence of customer participation on financial empowerment of borrowers.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey research design was adopted to collect data from 434 customers in India. Structural equation modelling procedure was performed to test the hypothesized relationships.FindingsThe findings show that relational transformation expectations leads to well-being, while social connectedness influences self and relational transformation expectations. Further, customer participation has a positive influence on financial empowerment of borrowers.Practical implicationsManagers may use these findings to create suitable marketing strategies for increasing customer participation in p2p lending.Originality/valuePrevious studies on transformative services have shown that well-being can be achieved through participation in services that are transformative by design, while this study has established that lender participation in peer-to-peer lending can result in relational transformation expectations and lead to well-being. Also, the current study has shown that social connectedness is an antecedent of transformation expectations.

Reliability Assessment of Demand Response Strategies for Profit Maximization

The idea of renewable resource integration influences the demand-supply balance significantly. The effort taken to diminish the deviation in demand-supply balance is greatly influenced by demand response (DR) strategy. In this analysis, the concept of DR is incorporated via the approach of load management. The optimal scheduling of the load considering the available energy helps to avoid unessential load shedding. The DR strategy of load shifting is suggested at different levels in accordance with the nature of load and real-time price. The profit of the utility is enhanced by providing the customer the flexibility to schedule their load. The curtailment of load can be avoided by increased customer participation in the suggested DR programs. The operating system is designed to be both efficient and effective by utilizing the real-time tariff profile of electricity to plan the generation of renewable energy, energy storage systems that include electric vehicles, and the utilization of grid power. The scalability and generalization of the proposed DR approach make it suitable for large-scale power systems that integrate renewable energy sources. The validation of the proposed method using reliability analysis ensures the effectiveness of the formulated DR. The proposed method is tested under two different scenarios and topologies on the IEEE-33 bus system and the results accomplished are promising.

When does highlighting effort or talent in fitness service providers' performance lead to customer compliance? The role of customers' implicit mindset

PurposeFitness service organizations often promote the personal training service by attributing competent features, qualifications, or/and service provision of fitness service providers to efforts or talents. This study aims to investigate whether and when the promotional attribution of fitness service providers' competent features, qualifications, or/and service provision contributes to customers' compliance with service instructions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors developed the experimental stimuli of performance attribution promotion (i.e. effort attribution and talent attribution) and validated them via a pretest (N = 400). Utilizing the validated stimuli, the authors conducted an experiment (N = 400) employing a single-factor (performance attribution promotion: effort vs talent) between-subject design. The authors performed partial least squares structural modeling (PLS-SEM) to test our hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed the interaction effect of performance attribution promotion and customers' implicit mindset on customer participation expectation. Specifically, when customers were high in implicit mindset (i.e. incremental-minded), attributing competent features, qualifications, or/and service provision of fitness service providers to effort (vs talent) increased customer participation expectation. Yet, when customers were low in implicit mindset (i.e. entity-minded), such an effect did not occur. Further, the authors identified customers' intention to comply with service instructions as a downstream consequence of the aforementioned interaction effect.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is twofold. It enriches the performance attribution literature by finding its new consequences and boundary condition. Moreover, the findings aid fitness service practitioners in developing strategies for eliciting customers' compliance with service instruction through performance attribution promotion.

Optimizing Customer Involvement: How Close Should You Be to Your Customers?

Two strategic factors of any business are customer interaction (how close you are to your customers) and customer participation (how involved customers are in producing the offering). In recent years, we have seen companies increase interaction through servitization and increase customer participation through self-service technologies. Yet, more is not necessarily better. Too much customer interaction can destroy operating efficiencies. Too much customer participation can compromise quality and depersonalize service relationships. This article provides a framework for analyzing customer interaction and participation, including an outline of decision factors, with the goal of identifying optimal and sustainable positioning for any given offering.

Investigating the effect of augmented reality on customer brand engagement: The mediating role of technology attributes

Increasing customer participation and engagement with the brand has become prominent to increase customer brand experience along the customer journey. Technological advancement and the growth in Augmented reality (AR) provide marketers with promising opportunities to engage customers. This study investigated the effect of augmented reality on customer brand engagement (CBE); the technology attributes based on the Technology acceptance model (TAM); perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and enjoyment were used as a mediator. An experiment was conducted on females in Egypt on a cosmetic AR Mobile application. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to identify the relationships of AR attributes, technology attributes, and customer brand engagement. All the hypotheses were statistically supported. The findings confirmed that augmented reality attributes positively affect customer brand engagement. Additionally, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and enjoyment mediated the indirect and positive effects on CBE. The research provides marketers with practical implications for using AR technology.

A Real-Time Bidding Gamification Service of Retailer Digital Transformation

Real-time bidding (RTB), which holds bids for advertisers to choose when and where to display their advertisements with desired budgets, is one way to improve effectiveness. We proposed supply side platform (SSP) and demand side platform (DSP) to integrate supplier side and demand side as solution. The proposed method combines two digital technology service, gamified RTB and mobile location-based analysis (LBA). In order to make target customers make interactions actively with the advertisement contents, the idea of gamification is employed to increase customer participation. By the coupons in the gamifying RTB App, it have increased the coupon usage rate of 16.7% and 11.6% in the restaurant and apparel industries. It is a successfully digital transformation marketing service for retail industries. The gamified RTB plays an important role in making old business circles accept new technologies for the renewal of promotion strategies and help find the business directions in the future.

Increasing Self-Sufficiency of Energy Community by Common Thermal Energy Storage

Customers energy consumption pattern affects directly the grid burden, especially during peak hours. In recent years, many different control methods have been proposed to shift the energy consumption to off-peak hours through demand response (DR) management. In order to have effective DR energy management, optimization has a key role. Thus, increasing the benefits for the customers and encouraging them to consider the new controlling approaches in their daily energy consumption pattern is needed for increased customer participation. On the other hand, renewables are integrated with the buildings to decrease the buildings’ energy costs and dependency on the grid utilities. This study moves a step further and considers a few numbers of neighboring houses as an energy community. The community commits to sharing their produced energy from the individual distributed solar system with each other and increasing their energy self-sufficiency by minimizing the import and export of power from/to the grid. This research focuses on applying common electric heat energy storage when community’s own solar PV generation is used to thermal energy generation/storing in heat storage and compares it with the case in which each house has its own distributed thermal energy storage. Then, different sized thermal storages are tested for the community to find the best solution. The results are compared in terms of import and export of energy, annual costs and the payback-time. It is concluded that the community with common thermal energy storage could decrease the energy exchange with the grid and the payback-time of the investments could be reduced for the community members.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on airline passengers’ recovery satisfaction: An experimental study

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted nearly every country in the world and affected numerous industries. Many businesses stopped or restricted their operations, resulting in service failures. This study aims to investigate the effect of customer participation and service failure on customer recovery satisfaction in the airline industry. The research employed a scenario-based experiment with 180 respondents as the samples. Convenience sampling was adopted. The responses of customer recovery satisfaction were measured on a 7-point Likert scale. Exploratory factor analysis was then used to validate the measurement and a general linear model was carried out to examine the impacts of customer participation and service failure on customer recovery satisfaction. The results showed that when the failure was due to the COVID-19, the highest customer satisfaction occurred when customers jointly participated in service recovery. This study also revealed that increasing customer participation during the service failure due to pilots on strike resulted in decreased customer recovery satisfaction. The current study contributes to the existing literature related to customer participation in service recovery. This research also provides a practical contribution for service managers when designing the level of customer participation in service recovery.

Navigating the demands of increasing customer participation through firm and individual job resources

Many firms are increasing the amount of customer participation required in B2B sales in efforts to improve firm performance. Unfortunately, little is known regarding how increasing customer participation expectations effects the firm's salespeople. To address this issue, using the job demands-resources model, this study examines how increases in customer participation influence salesperson burnout and salesperson investment in resources, while accounting for the job resources of job autonomy and belief in innate selling ability. The potential moderating effects of competitive intensity are also captured. The findings, based upon a survey of 210 B2B salespeople, indicate that increasing customer participation does not increase salesperson burnout, but increases investments in resources aimed to increase salesperson professional development. Further, greater job autonomy was found to decrease salesperson burnout and increase investment in resources, with the latter being moderated by competitive intensity. Belief in innate selling ability, in contrast, was found to increase burnout and decrease investment in resources by salespeople, with the latter being moderated by competitive intensity. This study highlights the multiple positive and negative effects of increasing customer participation in B2B selling, providing new insights for how firms can set policies to enhance salesperson well-being and effectiveness in a B2B setting.

PENYULUHAN JUMAMPAH (JURU PEMANTAU SAMPAH) TERHADAP PENGETAHUAN DAN PRAKTIK TENTANG MEMILAH DAN MENABUNG SAMPAH DI SEKOLAH DASAR KECAMATAN MERGANGSAN

Current waste management problems often occur in Yogyakarta. This is due to population growth which results in an increase the amount of waste generated. The occurrence is certainly not comparable with the area and number of Final Disposal Sites that do not increase. One method of waste management that can be applied is a Waste Bank. After conducting a preliminary survey at Anjani Asrih Waste Bank, there are 20-25% of customers were actively saving. Therefore, a method is needed that can increase customer participation. JUMAMPAH (Waste Monitoring Interpreter) is a method created by researchers who is expected to be able to increase children's knowledge about sorting and saving rubbish so that in the long run it can increase the participants of waste bank customers. The research is quasi-experimental research with a Pre-test design Post-test by using Control Group Design. The location of the study was in Surokarsan 2 Elementary School and Kintelan 1 Elementary School. Surokarsan 2 Elementary School as an experimental group received treatment in the form of counseling using media power points while Kintelan 1 Elementary School as a control group did not receive any treatment. The results of the statistical analysis using Mann-Whitney for knowledge of sorting out the waste, waste saving knowledge obtained p-value 0,000 <0,05 and JUMAMPAH practice indicated there was a significant difference. The conclusionof the research show there is significant difference in the value of the knowledge of sorting out waste, saving waste and JUMAMPAH practices on Surokarsan 2 Elementary School students as an experimental group and Kintelan 1 Elementary School students as a control group.

Examining the dynamics of customer adoption of retail loyalty programmes in India

In the present competitive global market retailers are striving for locking existing customers and hence, loyalty programmes are becoming increasingly common in India. In the light of this, the present study endeavours to shed light on customers' adoption of retail loyalty programmes in India. Data have been collected from 741 customers using structured questionnaire through proportionate sampling, by devising a sample proportionate to population proportion for each district of Delhi (Census, 2011). Data have been analysed through descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modelling (SEM) and hierarchical binary logistic regression using SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0 software. The findings of the study suggest that respondents' attitude is a key variable which significantly influences loyalty programme attributes and in turns play a pivotal role in the adoption of loyalty programmes by customers. Of three loyalty programme attributes - perceived advantage and perceived complexity have been found to have significant impact on loyalty programme adoption. The outcomes of the study highlight the need for communication campaigns which would increase customer participation in loyalty programmes.

Digital Transformation in Banking: Exploring Value Co-Creation in Online Banking Services in India

ABSTRACTInformation Technology (IT) use has the potential to enhance firms’ capacity to build and sustain competitive advantages. Though a rich literature notes how IT use continues to change the nature, scale, and scope of service delivery, surprisingly few studies have addressed the digital transformation processes through which the introduction of new IT-enabled online services are introduced in firms and industries. To address this issue, we identify and examine the processes through which IT may create or impair business value in service processes. To theorize these processes, we adopt a service-dominant logic perspective that views the customer as a co-creator of firm value and analyze some observed risks, tensions, and socio-technical challenges associated with the introduction of an online banking service system in India. Drawing on the findings, we present implications for IT strategy research and discuss in particular how firms can avoid unexpected value destruction when they increase customer participation in the delivery of online services to create value.

Determining Optimum Customer Participation Level in Services: Perceptual Biases and Congruence

The effect of increased customer participation on service quality remains an enduring dialogue in the services literature. We study the relationship between increased customer participation (i.e., customer workload) and service quality from the theoretical lens of perceptual congruence, a perceptual state in which a customer and a front-line employee have similar perceptions of a co-produced service output. We use an analytical model that relates customer work allocation to perceptual congruence through perceptual biases of a customer and employee. Based on our model, we identify four cases for the service design and present strategies to increase customer work allocation while keeping the perceptual congruence. While the term 'bias' may have a negative connotation, proper management of perceptual biases could allow a service to increase customer work allocation and achieve perceptual congruence at the same time.

Online algorithms for storage utilization under real-time pricing in smart grid

With the rapid proliferation of the advanced metering infrastructure, the smart grid is evolving towards increased customer participation. It is now possible for a utility to influence the customer demand profile via demand side management techniques such as real-time pricing and incentives. Energy storage devices play a critical role in this context, and must be optimally utilized. For instance, the peak power demands can be shaved by charging (discharging) the batteries during periods of low (high) demand. This paper considers the problem of optimal battery usage under real-time and non-stationary prices. The problem is formulated as a finite-horizon optimization problem, and solved via an online stochastic algorithm that is provably near-optimal. The proposed approach gives rise to a class of algorithms that utilize the battery state-of-charge to make usage decisions in real-time. The proposed algorithms are simple to implement, provably convergent for a wide class of non-stationary prices, easy to modify for a variety of use cases, and outperform the state-of-the-art techniques, such as those based on the theory of Markov decision processes or Lyapunov optimization. The robustness and flexibility of the proposed algorithms is tested extensively via numerical studies in MATLAB and real time digital simulator (RTDS).

Customer brand co-creation behavior: conceptualization and empirical validation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to expand on existing co-creation knowledge in order to accurately conceptualize, operationalize and contextualize the customer brand co-creation behavior concept from a customer perspective.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative approach is adopted in this study, using structural equation modeling to verify the co-creation of brand value for those customers who co-create.FindingsA new four-dimensional co-creation behavior concept is supported, highlighting the role of development, feedback, advocacy and helping, in the co-creation of brand value. Furthermore, a range of customer-level and brand-level antecedents are empirically verified.Research limitations/implicationsThe research takes a customer-centric view of co-creation and in doing so provides new insight into the effect on the co-creator. Additionally, the research offers an improved level of specificity in the co-creation domain by conceptualizing, operationalizing and contextualizing customer co-creation in a comprehensive research study.Practical implicationsThe findings offer new insight to brand managers, identifying avenues for increasing customer participation in co-creation programs and critically highlighting that co-creation behavior has positive effects on the co-creator’s perception of brand value.Originality/valueThe customer-centric approach offers an original perspective from which to explore co-creation, demonstrating the positive potential of co-creation in brand management strategies.

The effects of employee behaviours on customer participation in the service encounter

PurposeThere is considerable research examining the consequences and contingency factors of customer participation in the service encounter. In comparison, there is disproportionately less research examining the antecedents of customer participation. This paper aims to propose and test an appraisal-emotive framework of the effects of front-line employees’ in-role and extra-role behaviours on customer participation.Design/methodology/approachA survey on 583 customers of retail banks in China has been conducted to test the framework. Structural equation modelling and dominance analysis have been used for hypotheses testing.FindingsEmployees’ extra-role behaviour (i.e. organisational citizenship behaviour or OCB) has a stronger effect than their in-role behaviour (i.e. role-prescribed behaviour) in inducing customer participation. These effects are mediated by customer emotions. Specifically, the effect of employees’ in-role behaviour on customer participation was mediated by customers’ positive and negative emotions, whereas the effect of employees’ OCB was mediated by customers’ positive emotions but not by their negative emotions.Practical implicationsThe findings reveal that strategic management of employee behaviours can influence customer participation. While organisations often provide training to enhance employees’ in-role behaviour to deliver service performance, they should also recognise and encourage employees’ OCB as a means of increasing customer participation. In particular, employees who display positive emotions tend to evoke positive emotions in customers, which increase customer participation in the service encounter.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies in marketing to examine the differential effects of employees’ in-role and extra-role behaviours on customer participation. Importantly, the findings show that employees’ OCB is not only more effective than employees’ in-role behaviour in influencing customer participation but also these two behaviours have varying effects on customer emotions. These findings are new and contribute to the literatures on customer participation, value co-creation and human resource management.

Are cynical customers satisfied differently? Role of negative inferred motive and customer participation in service recovery

This study examines the role of consumer cynicism in service recovery, specifically the process through which cynicism influences customer satisfaction. This study also investigates the role of customer participation in the recovery process when alleviating outcomes among cynical customers. Across one pilot study and two experiments, we demonstrate that cynicism negatively moderates the effects of perceived justice on satisfaction. Additionally, we demonstrate the mediating role of negative inferred motive in the relationship between perceived justice and customer satisfaction. Highly cynical customers were found to less favorably evaluate customer satisfaction than less cynical customers, as they infer recovery efforts to be motivated by firms' self-interest rather than customers' interest. We also demonstrate that increasing customer participation in service recovery through joint recovery can overcome adverse outcomes and increase customer satisfaction among highly cynical customers. These findings offer important insights for service managers in designing effective service recovery strategies for cynical customers.

PV inverter reactive power control for chance‐constrained distribution system performance optimisation

Distributed generation has many potential benefits including use of renewable resources, increased customer participation, and decreased losses. However, as the penetration of distributed renewable energy sources increases, the technical challenges of integrating these resources into the power system increase as well. One such challenge is the rapid variation of voltages along distribution feeders in response to photovoltaic (PV) output fluctuations, and the reactive power capability of PV inverters can be used to address this challenge. A method of achieving optimal expected performance with respect to a figure of merit of interest to the distribution system operator while maintaining appropriate system voltage magnitudes and considering the uncertainty of PV power injections is proposed. The method utilises reactive power injection both to improve system performance and to compensate for variations in active power injection. It requires infrequent communication between the distribution system operator and the PV inverters and bases its decisions on short-term forecasts, formulating voltage magnitude requirements as chance constraints. The proposed method is validated using the IEEE 123-node radial distribution test feeder and shown to improve the distribution system performance (with respect to existing methods) and maintain suitable voltages.