Customer role in Service

Question 1

What are the roles of customers in service?

Answer 1

・Productive resource
・Contributors to service quality and satisfaction
・Competitors

Question 2

What is customer participation? (….)

Answer 2

・”The degree to which the customer is involved in producing and delivering the service.” (Dabholkar, 1990)
・Economic benefits - reduce labour costs, lower prices = win-win situation
・Positive impact on employees (You, Nataraajan, and Gond, 2011)

Question 3

What is the content of Psychological Implications of Customer Participation in Co-Production? (…..)

Answer 3

 Customers are more likely to take credit than blame
 However, when service fails, sat. is higher in high
participation group
 When customers participate they take more
responsibility for the outcome
 Recommend that firms provide customers with a
choice to participate
 Encourage participation in different scenarios

Question 4

What is the ‘self-serving’ bias? (….)

Answer 4

“the self-serving bias refers to the tendency of individuals to claim more responsibility for successes and less for failures in joint outcomes.”

By focusing on the self-serving bias, the authors offer new insights into how participation can affect customer satisfaction, highlighting the importance of considering both economic and psychological factors in customer co-production strategies.

Bendapudi and Leone (2003)

Question 5

What is Gap 3?

Answer 5

Gap between service quality specification and service delivery.
1. Customers don’t understand their roles
2. Customer s understand roles but are unable/unwilling to perform them
3. Actions and behaviours of other customers present

Question 6

Explain about the case of IKEA

Answer 6

 Key to success = relationship with customers
 Customer does activities usually completed by
manufacturer
 Sourcing, transporting, assembling
 Rent a roof rack
 Customers co-create their own experiences
 In doing so prices are kept low
 However, now recognising that customers want to participate to differing degrees.

Question 7

What is benefit of Self-Service Technology?

Answer 7

 Advances in technology
 Saves £, increases productivity
 Link to differentiation through convenience
 Customers want more info than before
 Also gives firms access to data

Question 8

What are the strategies for enhancing customer participation?

Answer 8

1. Define Customer’s Jobs
2. Recruit, educate and reward customers
3. Manage the customer mix

Question 9

What is the contents of Strategies for enhancing customer participation? (…)

Answer 9

It explores the concept of improving service quality and organizational performance by treating employees as customers and customers as employees.

This approach referred to as the “trading places” phenomenon, posits that organisations can benefit from applying similar strategies and techniques to both employees and customers.

Improved interactions between employees and customers can lead to higher customer loyalty, better service quality, and increased profitability.

Bower and Martin (2007)

Question 10

What is the role of fellow customers?

Answer 10

1. Fellow customers can enhance quality / satisfaction of service
2. Fellow customers can detract from quality / satisfaction of service

Question 11

What is the contents of Dark-side of CP (….)?

Answer 11

・It examines the negative aspects of customer participation (CP) in-service co-development.
・The study highlights that while CP is often seen as beneficial, it can also lead to role stress for customers, which negatively impacts customer satisfaction and perceived value.
・It is crucial to manage their participation carefully to avoid role stress and its adverse effects on service outcomes​.

(Blut, Heirati, and Schoefer: 2020)