I’ve got an idea! Exploring the antecedents of suggestion sharing in consumer services
Purpose Customer suggestions offer valuable insights to companies, and suggestion sharing is a form of engagement that strengthens customers’ relationships with firms. Yet research to date has neglected to explicitly study the antecedents of direct-to-firm consumer suggestion sharing or to adequatel...
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Published in | The Journal of services marketing Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 443 - 457 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Santa Barbara
Emerald Publishing Limited
28.08.2020
Emerald Group Publishing Limited |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Purpose
Customer suggestions offer valuable insights to companies, and suggestion sharing is a form of engagement that strengthens customers’ relationships with firms. Yet research to date has neglected to explicitly study the antecedents of direct-to-firm consumer suggestion sharing or to adequately characterize the behavior. This paper aims to address this deficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
The research draws on two surveys using three different elicitation techniques – critical incident, direct reporting and scenario response. Inductive content analysis of consumer responses is used to derive exploratory insights regarding the range of factors that motivate and inhibit consumer suggestion sharing, with an emphasis on consumer service-related contexts.
Findings
Potential self, other and firm benefits motivate suggestion sharing, whereas a host of factors, including the effort involved, a lack of perceived firm efficacy and unpleasant sharing contexts inhibit it. The findings reveal a rich portrait of antecedents that illustrates how direct-to-firm suggestion-sharing behavior combines elements of customer citizenship behavior, customer complaint behavior and online community idea sharing.
Research limitations/implications
The research relies upon reporting by US students and consumers.
Practical implications
Service firms hoping to avail themselves of customers’ desire to contribute to their and their customers’ betterment must understand and manage the tripartite nature of consumer suggestion sharing evinced by the antecedents revealed.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research offers the first description of the range of factors that motivate and inhibit direct-to-firm consumer suggestion sharing. As such, it provides a theoretical foundation upon which future consumer suggestion-sharing research can build. |
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ISSN: | 0887-6045 2054-1651 |
DOI: | 10.1108/JSM-08-2019-0312 |