Customer Engagement Behavior:
Theoretical Foundations and
Research Directions
Author - Jenny van Doorn1, Katherine N. Lemon2, Vikas Mittal3,
Stephan Nass4, Doreen Pick5, Peter Pirner6, and Peter C. Verhoef1
Resource -Journal of Service Research, 2010
Professor - Soe-Tsyr Yuan
Presenter – Wayne Yang
Agenda
 Background and Scope
 Conceptual Model of Customer Engagement Behavior
 Definition of CEB
 Dimension of CEB
 Model
 Temporal Aspects OF CEB
 CEB management
 Conclusion
1
Background
 1. CEOs are becoming wary of value-creating antics of
financial managers who rely on techniques such as
leveraging and financial restructuring (Aksoy et al. 2008;
de Ruyter and Wetzels 2000).
 2.Marketing scholars have begun to focus on customerbased metrics for measuring organizational performance.
=>Sustaining and nurturing the customer base may require
the firm to look beyond repurchase behavior alone.
2
Scope
 We seek to provide customer engagement behaviors
(CEBs) as a construct, more than that a way of thinking,
to capture how and why customers behave in numerous
ways that are relevant to the firm and its multiple
stakeholders.
 Our approach provides a unifying framework to think
about the numerous customer behaviors that have
previously been examined on a piecemeal basis.
3
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Defining CEB
 We posit that customer engagement behaviors go
beyond transactions, and may be specifically defined as
a customer’s behavioral manifestations that have a
brand or firm focus
 The behavioral manifestations, other than purchases, can
be both positive and negative.
 Customer engagement also encompasses customer cocreation.
4
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Defining CEB
 Customer engagement also embodies the exit and voice
components of Hirschman’s (1970) classic model.
 brand engagement as ‘‘an individual difference
representing consumers’ propensity to include important
brands as part of how they view themselves’’ (p. 92).
 (a) self-brand connection
 (b) customer-brand relationships
5
6
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Dimensions of CEB
 1.Valence, from a firm’s perspective customer engagement
can be classified as positive or negative (Brady et al. 2006).
 2. The form and modality of customer engagement refers to
the different ways in which it can be expressed by
customers.
 type of resources (e.g., time vs. money)
 in-role behaviors, extra-role behaviors, and elective behaviors.
 Another way to understand the scope of customer
engagement is the type of firm/brand level outcomes that
customers achieve.
7
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Dimensions of CEB
 3. scope—temporal and geographic.
 4.The impact of CEBs on the firm and its constituents can
be conceptualized in terms of the immediacy of impact,
intensity of impact, breadth of impact, and the longevity
of the impact.
8
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Dimensions of CEB
 5.It is also helpful to consider the customer’s purpose
when engaging, focusing on three questions:
 to whom is the engagement directed, to what extent is the
engagement planned?
 to what extent are the customer’s goals aligned with the
firm’s goals?
 Is the customer’s behavior directed at the firm or some other
constituent (such as government regulator, investors,
customers, or competitors)?
9
10
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Customer-Based Factors Affecting CEB
 Satisfaction
 Trust/commitment
 Identity
 Consumption goals (ex: getting the best deal during
vacation)
 Resources (ex: time, money)
 Perceived costs/benefits
11
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Firm-Based Factors Affecting CEBs
 Brand characteristics
 Firm reputation
 Firm size/diversification
 Firm information usage and processes
 Ex: Google and Apple
 Industry
12
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Context-Based Factors Affecting CEB
 Competitive factors
 Ex: comparative ad
 P.E.S.T.
 Political (ex: encouraging or inhibiting information flow)
 Economic/environmental (ex: earthquake)
 Social (ex: media)
 Technological
13
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-The Moderating Role of Antecedents
 We posit that different antecedents can also moderate
the effect of each other on CEBs.
 While many of these factors can directly affect CEBs, it is
important to understand and consider the idea that
these factors can interact with each other to jointly
affect CEBs.
 Clearly, theoretical and empirical work in this area is
necessary to further develop this idea.
14
15
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Consequences for Customers
 Cognitive
 (WIKI: cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention,
memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning,
problem solving, and decision making.)
 Attitudinal

(WIKI: An attitude can be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of people,
objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment)
 Emotional
 Physical/Time ex: time, money, and effort
 Identity ex:biker
16
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Consequences for Firms
 Financial ex: referral may cause more buying
 Reputational
 Regulatory ex: often negative experience
 Competitive
 Employee ex: suggestions from customers
 Product ex: co-create
17
Conceptual Model of Customer
Engagement Behavior
-Other Consequence
 Consumer welfare ex: customer complaints
 Economic surplus
 Social surplus
 Regulation ex: customer complaints
 Cross-brand/Cross-customer
 utilization of information in the public domain can affect the
entire industry.
18
Temporal Aspects OF CEB
-CEB Development Over Time
 While commitment gradually develops in a relationship,
passion usually occurs at the start of the relationship and
may subsequently diminish and occur irregularly.
 Ex: WOM, House, Services
19
Temporal Aspects OF CEB
-Factors Affecting CEB Over Time
 the main factors affecting CEB over time is the change in
a customer’s relative dependency on the particular
product or service category.
 Ex: health care
 One might also argue that the relative importance of
attitudes influencing CEBs may change during the course
of the relationship with a firm.
 Ex: Verhoef, Franses, and Hoekstra (2002) did not find any
evidence for a moderating effect of relationship age on the
effect of relational attitudes
20
Temporal Aspects OF CEB
-Factors Affecting CEB Over Time
 Changes in the level of dependency may also affect the
customers’ sensitivity to positive or negative
disconfirmation based on performance outcomes.
 Ex: finance crisis
 In many cases, particularly for services or durable goods,
customers have multiple experiences with the same
brand over time. As the relative quality of the experience
changes, so does the likelihood of CEBs.
 Negative + Negative = more negative
21
Temporal Aspects OF CEB
-Changes in Context
 Changes in the customer and firm context can affect the
level of CEBs over time, such as the available
engagement options and costs of engagement.
 Ex: Blockbuster vs. Netflix
22
Managing CEB
 Step 1: Identifying Engagement Behaviors and Customers
 Step 2: Evaluating Engagement Manifestations
 Ex: CEB scorecard
 Step 3: Acting on Customers’ Engagement Behavior
 Ex: listen carefully for the negative feedback
23
Conclusion
 Provide a simple model for CEB for further research and
for practical usage.
 Give a practical step-by-step map to manage the CEB
 Using verb at the topic
 There are still many ground need further research. such
as, interaction between antecedent factors, many
managerial issues - a more systematic way to identify CEB
24
Q&A
25
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