Effect Of Consumer Participation On Service Outcomes

The 21 st century is the era of consumers,which have become the center of the market.As the development of customer empowerment and customer co-production,the relationship between customer and company has changed:the customer is not only the recipient of services,but also the participants,even creators.The definition,dimensions of customer participation have been receiving much attention,especially the effect of customer participation on the service outcomes(service quality,customer satisfaction)and the mechanism of effect still need further discussion.This paper reviews the relevant literature about customer participation,service quality,and customer satisfaction,including the related variables,organizational identity theory,individual-environment matching theory.This paper introduced customer readiness(self-efficacy,perceived value,role identity)as control variables to build a mechanism model about the effect of customer participation on the service outcomes(quality of service and customer satisfaction).Based on the results of this study,we hope to provide some practical guidance to manage customer participation.The main conclusions from this paper are as followes:(1)Customers' readiness(self-efficacy,perceived value and role identification)moderates the influence in the mechanism.When customer readiness is stronger,the service quality and customer satisfaction have been significantly improved as the level of participation rises(on a certain scale);On the other hand,when the customer readiness is weaker,the positive effectson service outcomes are not obvious.(2)The results ofcustomer participation of service outcomes may not monotononic,which is influenced by the level of participation: when the participation level is too high,the positive effectson service quality and satisfaction will be weakened or even become negative.