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This study aims to examine and compare the influence of the disposition to engage in engagement behaviors on physical and virtual engagement platforms, as well as the influence of these engagement behaviors on brand loyalty, value-in-use and word-of-mouth.

Data were collected using a survey distributed to a random sample of 10,000 fans of five teams in the Swedish top-division of elite football. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to derive a distinction between prevalent platforms, scales were validated through a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was used to test the research model.

Customer disposition to engage with the sports team had a significant influence on customer engagement behaviors on both physical and virtual engagement platforms. However, engagement behaviors on virtual platforms were found to be more important than engagement behaviors on physical platforms for fostering brand loyalty and value-in-use.

The results highlight the importance of engagement behaviors with a brand on virtual engagement platforms. Thus, brand managers should prioritize their presence on social media to generate the positive outcomes of customer engagement behaviors.

By examining the effects of customer engagement behaviors on both physical and virtual engagement platforms, this study provides new insights to the emerging customer engagement literature.

This study aims to understand how integration efforts at both communication and channel levels can foster customer engagement behavior in the retail sector from the perspective of employees.

Data were collected through 231 face-to-face questionnaires completed by frontline employees in shopping centers. A structural equation modeling approach was applied to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results highlight the importance of integration efforts as external stimuli for enhancing employees’ perceptions about customer engagement behavior. Findings extend the stimulus-organism-response model by predicting responses that go beyond employees’ behavior to predict customer engagement behavior. Results also confirm the mediating role of attitudes toward marketing communications and synergy realization in the proposed model.

Retailers should integrate their multiple channels and operate consistently and in coordination through them to develop employees’ perceptions about customer engagement behavior. Managers should regularly collect information from their employees as they represent an important touchpoint in omnichannel retailing.

There is a gap in the omnichannel retailing literature regarding how integration efforts at a communication level may complement integration efforts at a channel level for developing customer engagement. This study addresses this gap by adopting a novel perspective using frontline employees as a source of information for assessing customer engagement behavior. It extends knowledge about how customer engagement behavior may be developed and strengthened from the employees’ point of view.

Este estudio analiza, desde la perspectiva del empleado, cómo la integración de la comunicación y la coordinación de los canales de distribución fomenta el engagement de los clientes en el sector minorista.

Los datos fueron recogidos a través de 231 cuestionarios personales realizados a empleados de centros comerciales. Las hipótesis se contrastaron mediante un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados destacan la importancia de la integración para fomentar la percepción de los empleados acerca del engagement del cliente. Estos resultados extienden la aplicación del Modelo de Estimulo-Organismo-Respuesta para predecir no sólo el comportamiento de los empleados si no el engagement del cliente. Los resultados también corroboran el rol mediador de la actitud hacia las comunicaciones de marketing y la obtención de sinergias.

Los distribuidores deben integrar todos los canales y actuar de forma coordinada y consistente para mejorar la percepción de los empleados acerca del engagement del cliente. Se debe recabar información periódica sobre las percepciones de los empleados ya que constituyen un importante punto de contacto en la gestión omnicanal de los establecimientos comerciales.

Este estudio aborda un gap existente en la literatura acerca de cómo los esfuerzos de integración a nivel de comunicación complementan los esfuerzos a nivel de canal para fomentar el engagement del cliente. La novedad de este estudio reside en estudiar estos aspectos desde la perspectiva de los empleados.

本研究旨在从员工的角度了解沟通和渠道层面的整合工作如何促进零售部门的顾客参与行为。

数据收集于购物中心一线员工所填写的231份面对面问卷。应用结构方程建模方法来检验所提出的假设。

本文结果强调了整合工作作为外部激励对于提高员工对顾客参与行为的认知的重要性。研究结果通过预测超越员工行为的反应来预测客户参与行为, 从而扩展了刺激-机体-反应模型。结果还证实了对营销传播和协同实现的态度在所提出的模型中的中介作用。

零售商应该整合其多种渠道, 并通过这些渠道持续协调地运作, 以培养员工对顾客参与行为的认知。管理者应该定期从员工那里收集信息, 因为他们是全渠道零售的一个重要接触点。

在全渠道零售业的文献中, 关于沟通层面的整合工作如何补充渠道层面的整合工作以发展顾客参与的问题, 存在研究差距。本研究通过采用新颖的视角, 将一线员工作为评估顾客参与行为的信息来源来解决这一差距。它扩展了关于如何从员工的角度发展和加强顾客参与行为的知识。

Within the retail banking sector, the customer-centric business model has become an important and new business trend in recent years. The enhancement of the frontline service employees’ engagement and their customer-oriented behaviors are among the key factors affecting business performance (BP) in this sector of the banking industry. The purpose of this paper is to improve management decisions to enhance BP through examining the relationship between the frontline employees’ engagement and BP while taking into account the mediating effect of customer-oriented behaviors on this relationship.

A quantitative approach was adopted to conduct the present study, and the respondents were sampled from a large commercial bank in Iran using a structured questionnaire. Overall, 50 branch managers and 90 frontline employees were selected using random sampling. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to ascertain the validity and reliability of the observed items and a structural equation model was used for testing the proposed hypotheses and research framework.

The findings showed that customer-oriented behaviors mediated the relationship between the frontline employees’ engagement and bank’s branches’ BP. Higher levels of the frontline employees’ engagement enhance the customer-oriented behaviors. It was revealed that the frontline employees are engaged in their job and organization. Moreover, the engaged frontline employees listen carefully to customers, the customer’s problem is important to them and they complete their tasks precisely for customers. It has been confirmed that customer-oriented behaviors enhance branches’ BP. The bank frontline employees’ engagement and customer-oriented behaviors, in turn, affected the bank’s branches’ financial performance, process performance and employee performance compared with the bank’s key competitors.

This study highlights the value of empirically establishing how employee customer-oriented behaviors are affected by employee engagement as an integrative construct bringing together BP.

This study can help improve BP by increasing the frontline employees’ engagement and their customer-oriented behaviors. This study suggests that organizations using the findings of this study could effectively assess their frontline employees’ engagement and their customer-oriented behaviors and then plan for improving them.

This study offers a customer-oriented initiative as a social responsibility to be considered by retail banks. In light of the social exchange theory, the banks valuing customer-oriented can provide employees with knowledge, skills, values and support to develop motivation and abilities to demonstrate customer-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors.

Previous studies demonstrated that the employees’ engagement affects their customer-oriented behaviors. In addition, studies have referred to the effect of employees’ customer-oriented behaviors on BP. However, to the best of the knowledge, key questions regarding how the employees’ engagement at the branch level fosters customer-oriented behaviors and, in turn, the bank’s branches’ BP, remain unanswered. Hence, this study contributes to the investigation of the mediating role of the frontline employees’ customer-oriented behaviors in the relationship between their engagement and branches’ BP in the retail banking sector.

This study aims to investigate the moderating role of cultural value orientations on the relationship between brand ownership and customer brand engagement behavior through brand responsibility and self-enhancement.

Respondents came from firm-managed online smartphone brand communities in South Korea and the USA. Convenience sampling yielded 197 valid responses, with 98 coming from South Korea and 99 coming from the USA.

The study results provide empirical evidence that cultural value orientations influence customer brand engagement behavior. As expected, the findings indicate that individualism-collectivism and power distance significantly moderate the indirect effect of brand responsibility and self-enhancement on the relationship between brand ownership and customer brand engagement behavior.

Prior research has focused mainly on customer engagement behaviors that target the firm, employees and other customers, with little research examining customer engagement behavior that targeted the brand (customer brand engagement behavior). This exploration is important because customers could serve as brand missionaries, become less apt to switch brands and provide feedback, leading to a sustainable competitive advantage.

Understanding negative customer engagement is important as it is argued that negative information has a stronger impact on a customer’s brand perception and purchase decision than that of positive information. Hence, this paper aims to propose new determinants of negatively valenced customer engagement, including disengaged and negatively engaged behaviours in a service consumption context and explore under what conditions customers display disengaged or negatively engaged behaviours.

This study incorporates justice theory, expectancy disconfirmation theory and psychology literature to propose determinants of negative customer engagement behaviours.

A conceptual framework is developed that proposes customer perceived justice and negative disconfirmation as determinants of negative customer engagement via the mediator of customer outrage. Moderating variables, include self-esteem, self-efficacy, altruism and vengeance; are also proposed to affect disengaged/negatively engaged behaviours.

This study is the first to specify the underlying reasons of negative customer engagement by establishing the conceptual linkages between negative disconfirmation, justice and negative customer engagement via the mediating role of customer outrage. Further, customer resources are used to understand disengaged/negatively engaged behaviours. In doing so, this study views negative customer engagement from the perspective of a customer’s internal response to the trigger experience, rather than the experience itself. Thus, this study contributes to literature on customer engagement by developing a conceptual framework that illustrates the underlying cognitive and affective responses that drive negative customer engagement behaviours.

This study aims at identifying and examining the mediating role of customer engagement behavior and social interactivity onbrand loyalty.

A correlational study design was adopted in this study to collect data (online survey) from 400 online participants active on Facebook pages.

Empirical results reveal that there is a significant and positive impact of social interactivity on consumer engagement behavior and brand loyalty.

The findings would help decision makers to make useful decisions in their everyday work practices, which would ultimately increase the market competition of brands.

Decision makers should focus on the entertainment and interactivity levels in advertisement designs that would allow customers to perceive the novelty of advertising.

The results are critical in developing consumers' attitude and perception toward a brand by providing them insights regarding the characteristics of brands.

The participation and social interactivity of consumers on the Facebook page drive consumer engagement behavior and brand loyalty.

Relationship marketing scholars and managers have recognized the potential of customer engagement to enhance business performance and customer value. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects that different types of customer engagement behaviors have on their perceived benefits.

The authors conducted two empirical studies. In the first step, 69 in-depth interviews were held to identify important customer engagement behaviors and targeted benefits. Then, in the second step, a quantitative study with 255 participants was used to match the identified customer engagement behaviors with the targeted benefits.

The results reveal that there are three aggregated types of customer engagement behaviors (“value creation-focused customer engagement”, “online-focused customer engagement” and “customer-to-customer interaction-focused customer engagement”). These types of customer engagement behaviors lead to different targeted benefits (social, relationship, autonomous, economic, altruistic and self-fulfillment benefits).

A consideration of the influencing factors of the different customer-engagement-behavior types, including customers’ motives for their engagement with a company, would potentially enhance the findings. Furthermore, a closer investigation of the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and customer engagement types can also provide deeper insights into the reasons for engaging with a certain firm or brand.

The findings provide managers with information on how to segment customers according to their customer engagement type and associated benefits and thereby enable them to manage customer engagement behaviors more profitably.

The results make a key contribution to the emerging research field of customer engagement by gaining deeper insights into the benefits associated with different customer engagement behaviors. It becomes clear that different customer engagement types aim at receiving various benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to extend existing engagement research in two directions: first, it operationalizes the dynamic nature of the engagement process within a customer-brand dyad and, second, it tests the interrelationships with other network actors in a triadic network setting.

A 2×2 experimental design models the iterative nature of the engagement process based on repeated measures at three points in time, considering the contextual effects of connections with other customers and crowding-in effects based on monetary incentives.

This research demonstrates that in a utilitarian service setting, customer engagement does not emerge per se in the dyadic interaction between the customer and the brand. For high levels of engagement behavior to occur, incentives and ties to other network actors are essential. Further, the findings suggest a non-linear relationship between engagement behavior and its antecedents and consequences: engagement behavior must overcome a certain intensity threshold to unfold its effect.

Further research is needed to explore the dynamic nature of the engagement process in experiential and interactive service settings, and more complex network settings that may involve more actors and more complex relationships.

By facilitating connections between customers and compensating for low intrinsic interest, managers can facilitate actual engagement behavior even in utilitarian service contexts. Once engagement behavior has been triggered, an increased engagement disposition, higher satisfaction, higher involvement and higher loyalty follow.

This study empirically tests the dynamic nature of the engagement process within and beyond the dyad, and has revealed a non-linear pattern of customer engagement behavior within its nomological network.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the central role of bank customers’ engagement as a mediating variable between customer experience and two non-transactional customer behaviors (advocacy and attitudinal loyalty).

To test the hypothesis, a model was designed with two antecedents of bank customer engagement (satisfaction and customer emotions), and two non-transactional behaviors (attitudinal loyalty and customer advocacy). The model was tested on a sample of 1,790 customers of two Spanish banks.

Results confirm bank customer engagement as the mediating variable between customer experience outcomes and non-transactional behaviors.

Banks should design physical spaces with an atmosphere that will have a positive impact on their customers, and pay particular attention to interactions with contact personnel and other customers present at that moment of truth. The new concept of the branch now being introduced looks to the future, transforming it into a place to attend to and advise customers, and designed to encourage and facilitate a more personal and enduring relationship. This transformation includes longer opening hours and a concept that appears to draw from the store model. Its design is more accessible, more agile, more welcoming and more digital, conceived to attract the customer’s attention from the first moment.

The contribution of this research is related to the analysis from a theoretical and empirical perspective of the mediating impact of customer engagement between customer experience outcomes (satisfaction and emotions during the service) and non-transactional behaviors (advocacy and attitudinal loyalty).

Customer engagement is a concept that has emerged recently to capture customers' total set of behavioral activities toward a firm. The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of customer engagement behaviors on perceived relationship benefits and relationship outcomes.

An online survey of members of a gaming Facebook brand community, resulting in 276 usable responses from gaming customers.

Customer engagement was divided into “Community Engagement Behaviors” (CEB) and “Transactional Engagement Behaviors” (TEB). In addition, three relationship benefits were identified: social benefits, entertainment benefits and economic benefits. The engagement behaviors largely influenced the benefits received. Furthermore, the mediation analysis results show that the influence of CEB on satisfaction is partially mediated by social benefits and entertainment benefits, while the effect of TEB on satisfaction is fully mediated through the same benefits. The effect of CEB on loyalty is mediated through entertainment benefits.

The findings are limited to one brand community. The findings have implications for further research on customer engagement.

The paper's findings give ideas about how firms can utilize Facebook communities to enhance satisfaction and loyalty by offering the right kinds of relationship benefits. Managers are encouraged to study customer engagement behaviors on, and perceptions of, all channels and to utilize this information for the development of their social media strategies.

Customer engagement is a newly introduced concept on which scarce empirical research exists, and there is very little evidence of its effect on customer relationships. This is the first paper to study customer engagement empirically on a Facebook brand community, and to relate customer engagement to relationship constructs.