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Exploring the Relevance of Mobile Social Media for Facilitating Customer
Engagement in Real-time Service Encounters
Introduction
The continued advancement of wireless telecommunications infrastructure and sophisticated smartphones, is laying the groundwork for moving social media applications away from desktop PCs and laptops, toward mobile devices (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Leveraging this emerging technology, consumers have begun to share their geographic location in commercial consumption settings and generate content with their social network via the use of mobile location-based services. With advances in GPS technology making it possible to identify the exact location of a specific mobile device at a particular location, mobile social media users are now accessing, communicating and interacting with service brands, and members of their social network, within physical service encounters in real-time (Kaplan and Haenlein 2012). For instance, one of the most popular platforms for MLBS is delivered by Facebook which allows users to ‘check-in’ at service providers Facebook band page, notify their friends of where they are, and post comments about the service experience they are currently
consuming. Moreover, users can simultaneously ‘like’ a firm’s Facebook brand page allowing the user to subscribe to receive information directly from with the service firm and become a member of the online brand community via the service firms Facebook brand page. At this point, the user can participate and collaborate in discussion with other customers, and importantly, facilitate greater interaction with the service brand leading to heightened levels of customer brand engagement. As such, mobile social media technologies now present unique customer engagement opportunities for service brands to interact and collaborate with customers in real-time (i.e. at the point of service consumption) to achieve firm benefits. Although customer adoption of mobile location-based services is at the emerging stage of its lifecycle, it is expected to dramatically increase with the rise of mobile commerce over the coming years. Recent data estimates predict that location-based services users worldwide will grow to 1.24 billion by 2015 (Global Industry Analysts 2010), with 28% of US adults
adopting mobile or social location-based services such as exhibiting ‘check-in’ behavior at a service location (Pew Research 2011). Further, since the launch of Facebook’s check-in feature in August 2010 (Facebook, 2010), users have made over 17 billion location-tagged Facebook posts and check-ins around the world (Facebook, 2012 [b]). Consequently, it has become an imperative for service brands to maximise the highly personal communication opportunities brought about by the rise of mobile social media and to understand where such communication can ‘complement’ other marketing activities (Hennig-Thurau et al, 2010). Consistent with this standpoint, van Doorn et al (2010, p. 262) recommend that firms “nurture and harness the positive potential of customer engagement behaviour by fostering processes and venues to stimulate it” such as through creating an online space for customers who are engaged with the brand to express themselves (Mathwick, Wiertz and de Ruyter, 2008; Wagner and Majchrzak, 2007; van Doorn et al, 2010).
Despite these important advancements into the marketing literature on the importance of engaging customers, there have been limited attempts to develop a conceptualisation of the customer engagement process leveraging mobile social media technologies for service firms, which operate a physical service channel. This being the case, in this study we explore the relevance of the physical service encounter to act as a trigger to activate mobile social media use by consumers which then facilitates a series of sub-processes of ‘engagement interactions’ between the firm and the customer, and, customer-to-customers. To articulate the breadth and depth of the customer engagement process facilitated by mobile social media, this study
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builds and extends upon existing marketing theory by Brodie et al. 2011, Brodie et al. 2013 and van Doorn et al. (2010) to present a conceptual framework to understand how mobile social media interactions initiated by customers in offline service consumption settings can contribute to customer engagement enhancement and firm benefits. The paper ends with implications for marketing strategies aimed at attracting, building, maintaining, and
enhancing relationships with existing and potential customers. Future research directions are also presented.
LITERATURE REVIEW Customer Engagement and the Role of Social Media
With the advent of new marketing communication platforms such as social media, consumers are interacting with peers to generate and diffuse firm relevant messages via behaviours such as word-of-mouth, e-word-of-mouth, blogging and making web-posts (van Doorn et al, 2010; Pehlivan et al, 2011; Hennig-Thurau et al, 2004). However, “these behavioural expressions of customers are likely to be different manifestations of the same underlying construct – they all reflect customer engagement” (van Doorn et al, 2010, p. 253).
Interest in ‘Customer Engagement’ has emerged in the marketing literature over the past five years in response to the needs of practitioners to better connect with their customers, which has been brought about by advancements in online communication technologies that facilitate interactive customer experiences in real-time (Brodie et al, 2013). Customer engagement has been described as a multidimensional, customer based psychological state occurring by way of interactive experiences with a brand or other focal object such as a product or firm, and includes C2C interactions (Brodie et al., 2013; Brodie et al, 2011; Bowden, 2009). Customer engagement has also been conceptualized as a behavioural construct by Van Doorn et al (2010), which includes firm directed behaviours toward a firm beyond transaction. According to this perspective, Van Doorn et al. (2010) describes customer engagement behaviour “as a customer’s behavioural manifestation that has a brand or firm focus, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers” (p. 254). Subsequently, the behavioural perspective has been the adopted view in recent work in the area (Jahn and Kunz, 2012; Kumar et al, 2010; Verhoef et al, 2010).
Studies on customer engagement in the online context have begun to emerge into the
literature arguing that engaged customers spread positive word-of-mouth about the firm and recommend its products through websites (such as brand communities and blogs) and social networking sites (Sashi, 2012). Gummerus et al. (2012) contend that social media is now one of the most popular forums in which customers engage behaviourally with brands and
highlights that customer engagement behaviour includes posting, and commenting in online discussions as well as all firm-directed communication activity taking place through brand communities, blogging and other social media. On this basis, we argue that MSLBS usage (i.e. checking-in activity) made by consumers in service consumption settings in real-time falls within this realm of user generated activity.
Existing Customer Engagement Frameworks
In an analysis of the recent literature on customer engagement, van Doorn et al’s (2010) conceptual model provides a comprehensive illustration of the customer engagement process. According to van Doorn et al. (2010), the construction of customer engagement behaviour is based on the form of the behaviour, which denotes the specific action performed by a
consumer toward a firm via a specific medium (e.g. posting comments on an online product forum website) valence (e.g. positive or negative comments posted on the website), scope
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(e.g. the geographic size of the audience and the temporal scope; ongoing or one off behaviour), impact (immediacy, intensity, breadth / number of individuals affected) and longevity; (how long the result of the behaviour is preserved such as a comment left of a social networking website for months) and the underlying customer goals such as who is the target of the engagement behaviour and how does the customer’s goal align or not align with the firms goals.
According to van Doorn et al. (2010), customer engagement behaviours then lead to various consequences for the customer and the firm including cognitive processing consequences, where behaviours influence a customer’s cognitive processes and decision making leading to changes in purchase behaviours, attitudinal / emotional state consequences, where positive attitudes toward the firm or positive affect may follow successful engagement behavior (e.g. a customer feels satisfied that the contribution to an online brand community is valued by the firm and / or other members), physical / temporal resource consequences, brought about by the fact that consumers may be required to expend certain resources of time and effort to continue engaging with a firm, and as such, they evaluate the costs and benefits of engaging in specific behaviors and the cost may be determined by relative resource limitations for consumers, and Identity related consequences, where consumers derive a sense of identity from participation in many engagement behaviours such as membership in an online brand community. From a firm perspective, van Doorn et al. (2010) highlights consequences for the firm including financial, reputational, regulatory, competitive, employee oriented and product oriented in addition to broader macro environment outcomes (e.g. consumer welfare,
economic surplus creation).
An alternate framework to explain the customer engagement process has also been advanced by Brodie et al. (2013) which proposes that customer engagement is ‘triggered’ by a
consumer’s search for a solution to a problem or to satisfy some sort of need or want. In the context of online brand communities, Brodie et al, (2013) found that after finding a relevant online community, the user initiates interaction and relationship building with the online community through the posting of a comment. According to this framework, once the consumer engages with the firm, they experience an “interplay of the five consumer engagement sub-processes” (p. 7) including sharing and learning with other consumers through comments and suggestions, co-developing with the firm through feedback and suggestions, and advocating the firm with others. Consistent with van Doorn et al. (2010), Brodie et al. (2013) argues that the consequences of these customer engagement processes influence various customer engagement consequences including loyalty and satisfaction, empowerment, strengthened emotional bonds and enhanced trust and commitment. Further, Brodie et al (2013), contends that customer engagement is an iterative process, and that engaged consumers return to start the process over again following customer engagement consequences such as loyalty and satisfaction.
Toward a Framework for Customer Engagement in MSLBS Triggered by Real-time Service Encounters
Based on the above discussion, this study argues that MSLBS such as Facebook’s mobile check-in application can provide what Sawhney et al. (2005) and Ramaswamy (2009) label as an ‘engagement platform’ through which customers can initiate the customer engagement process with the service brand. This being the case, and considering the customer engagement frameworks advanced by van Doorn et al. (2010) and Brodie et al. (2013), this study builds and extends these works to develop a conceptual model shown in Figure 1 illustrating the facets of the customer engagement process which operates within the context of MSLBS,
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whereby the customer initiates the customer engagement process via MSLBS technology in the service encounter. Furthermore, the model shows how this technology used in an offline service encounter can act as an engagement platform to facilitate the customer engagement process. In doing so, this platform provides the service provider with an opportunity for greater customer-service brand interactions by enabling consumers to elect to become members of an online brand community on a social networking site as a result of consumers initiating the mobile check-in procedure in a real-time service encounter.
Figure 1: Customer Engagement Process for MSLBS in Service Encounters
In Figure 1, the engagement process begins with a trigger, where we argue can occur when certain favourable environmental characteristics (e.g. a positive perception of the service encounter) and/or individual consumer characteristics (e.g. self-enhancement needs, social gratification, and/or personally relevant situation such as a birthday dinner with friends) interact to initiate customer engagement behaviour. At this point, the initiator (the customer checking in using MSLBS) checks-in to the Facebook location point using a mobile device. In doing so, the user has enacted a number of customer engagement behaviour sub-processes, including advocating, socialising and sharing as conceptualised by Brodie et al. (2013). This includes advocating the offline service firm’s products, socialising information to the user’s social network and sharing service-delivery related information such as eWoM
recommendations between a user and their online social network. After the user has initiated the check-in post to his or her online social network, the receivers of the check-in (i.e. the members of the social network) can view the check-in post with comments attached by a MSLBS user on Facebook. In doing so, the customer engagement process has been enabled whereby learning occurs (Brodie et al, 2013), as members of the initiator’s online social network learn about the offline service provider’s offerings and the nature of the service experience with the consumer. This part of the process leads to benefits for the service provider, particularly awareness of the service brand among potential customers, leading to greater opportunities for patronage due to the persuasive properties of eWoM. Consequently,
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these consumers could potentially lead others to participate in an online brand community such as through ‘liking’ the service provider’s Facebook brand page.
The model in Figure 1 further shows the user of the MSLBS, the initiator, then experiencing customer engagement consequences of benefit to the firm. These include a heightened sense of connection and emotional bonding with the offline service provider, as well as increased trust, commitment, and satisfaction. At this point, the initiator may engage in further
behavioural outcomes toward the offline service provider including revisiting and spreading positive word-of-mouth to others offline. The initiator’s subsequent behaviours may also include ‘liking’ the offline service provider’s Facebook brand page, which is the first step in forming a brand community engagement platform via the social networking site. Should such behaviour occur by the initiator, potential exists for the activation of all customer engagement sub-processes to take place including advocating, socialising, learning, sharing and
co-developing as articulated by Brodie et al, (2013). Further, consistent with Brodie et al (2013), customer engagement triggers can have a direct influence on customer affective consequences and behavioural outcomes arising from positive perceptions of service quality and satisfaction as well as individual characteristics such as high involvement and loyalty to the service firm.
Contribution, Implications and Future Research Directions
In sum, this study has built upon the prior work of van Doorn (2010), Brodie et al (2011) and Brodie et al (2013), to advance a conceptual framework articulating the customer engagement process by leveraging MSLBS and social media applications in the context of physical service encounters. The consequences of such customer engagement behavior include increased customer-firm emotional connection, trust, attachment and loyalty outcomes including revisit and notably word-of-mouth behaviours. This being the case, the study has important practical implications, which provides ‘a clear picture’ and a useful framework to better the benefits of deploying MSLBS within the physical service environment to facilitate customer engagement behaviours in order to achieve service firm benefits. Therefore, the imperative for service firms is to influence and facilitate customers to ‘check-in’ on a Facebook brand page and transition this step to ‘liking’ the service firm’s Facebook brand page. In doing so, the service firm can unlock potentially significant relationship marketing activities and implement
associated relationship management activities to facilitate closer interactions between the firm and its customers. In this sense, the creation and formation of online brand community via the Facebook brand page (Zaglia 2012) becomes of particular significance where customers can further share their interest and admiration for the brand, and/or engage in co-creation efforts with the service firm and other customers to improve the overall service product.
As a starting point for future advancement of the model, qualitative research is needed to focus the study onto the most relevant components and interrelationships between them of a customer engagement behavior model in the MSLBS context. This would also help to develop a set of testable hypotheses related to the model for testing. Future quantitative research would then translate this conceptual process model into a structural model, and empirically test the interrelationships of the model, and test its generalisability. Such research should be designed with the practitioner in mind, the focus being on assiting them in developing
customer-centred customer engagement strategies (Vivek et al, 2012). Future research should establish which antecedent drivers have the strongest effect between consumer groups and multiple offline service categories. Future research is also needed to develop and validate a universally applicable set of customer engagement measures.
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