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The purpose of this study is to explore the capacity of frontline employees (FLEs) to provide insights into customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) and its management in service organisations.

This exploratory study used focus groups and semi-structured in-depth interviews with FLEs to investigate their experiences and reflections in dealing with CCI in a complex service setting in the UK.

FLEs are able to recall CCI encounters, both positive (PCCI) and negative (NCCI), with ease. They are capable of conceptualising and exploring complex nuances surrounding CCI encounters. FLEs can distinguish levels of seriousness of negative CCI and variations in customer sensitivity to CCI. FLEs vary in their comfort in intervening in negative CCI situations. Whilst FLEs draw on skills imparted in an employee-customer interaction context, they would benefit from CCI-specific training. Propositions are advanced for further empirical testing.

The authors studied FLE views on CCI in a customer-centric service organisation in the UK. Future research should further address the FLE perspective on CCI in less service-driven organisations and in other countries. A wide range of themes for further research are proposed.

The insights presented will assist service managers to assess the CCI context of their own organisation and develop strategies and guidelines to support FLEs in detecting, understanding and responding to CCI encounters.

The paper highlights and discusses the complexity of intervening in negative CCI encounters in socially inclusive service environments.

Based on FLE-derived perceptions of CCI, the paper contributes conceptually to CCI knowledge by identifying the existence of “concealed CCI”, distinguishing between gradual and sudden CCI intervention contexts and exploring the human resource development consequences of this distinction, with original implications for service management. The study also contributes to extending the scope of research into triadic service interactions.

The paper aims to conceptually explore customer‐to‐customer interaction (CCI) in a cross‐cultural context; and to identify research opportunities in the field of cross‐cultural CCI.

The paper analyses consultations both with CCI experts and cross‐cultural management experts.

Cross‐cultural customer‐to‐customer interaction (CC‐CCI) is shown to have received very little research attention. The relevance of CCI to hospitality management is highlighted and opportunities for future investigations are identified. CC‐CCI is shown to be conceptually quite complex.

For hospitality management practitioners and researchers, a variety of perspectives on how CC‐CCI can influence the customer experience are provided. Service managers are provided with a new dimension to incorporate into their strategic and operational plans for managing CCI in an increasingly globalised environment.

The article contributes towards developing a scientific approach towards understanding a phenomenon which is a widespread feature of social life. It also provides a fresh focus for cross‐cultural research.

The paper addresses an important and original issue in hospitality management. Many illustrations of the new concept are provided and directions and methods for conducting research into CC‐CCI are put forward. The article also contributes to the hospitality management literature by broadening the discussion of the customer as an operant resource.

Despite the fact that prosocial motivation is related to word of mouth (WOM), few studies have been conducted to investigate the psychological and behavioral processes that mediate the two constructs. This study aims to explore customers’ relational interactions, specifically customer-to-employee interaction (via customer participation), customer-to-customer interaction and customer-to-brand interaction (via brand commitment), as mediators of the prosocial motivation–WOM linkage. Specifically, this paper examines the serial mediation model, in which prosocial motivation increases customer participation and customer-to-customer interaction, which in turn increase brand commitment and WOM sequentially.

This study collected survey data from two different samples, including higher degree research education and fitness gym services (highly interactive, people-processing service contexts), and used partial least square method to analyze the multiple serial mediations.

The results of this study show two serial mediating processes through which prosocial motivation influences WOM: 1. prosocial motivation → customer participation → brand commitment → WOM; and 2. prosocial motivation → customer-to-customer interaction → brand commitment → WOM.

The findings provide managerial insights into how marketers can foster a more interactive service environment to encourage prosocial customers to engage in WOM more effectively.

This study contributes to the literature on services WOM by illustrating the behavioral and psychological processes that underlie the effect of prosocial motivation on WOM.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) management, by revisiting three older services marketing models: the servuction model, the services marketing triangle and the services marketing pyramid.

Noting the lack of theoretical frameworks of CCI management, this study adopts a problematization approach to identify foundational services marketing models, question their underlying assumptions, develop an alternative conceptual framework and evaluate its adequacy for CCI management, on the basis of a systematic literature review and content analyses.

By revisiting the assumptions underlying three relevant models in the light of the present-day, technology-infused service environment, this study proposes a four-triangle CCI management framework encompassing four specific modes of CCI management: managerial decisions by the firm; frontline employees; the design of the physical environment; and technology. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the triadic relationships involving the focal customer, other customers and the four modes of CCI management. Building on these findings, this study concludes with an extensive research agenda.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first scholarly effort in services marketing literature to provide a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of CCI management. With its basis in foundational models, the new framework is well-suited to address future challenges to service marketplaces too.

Enterprises' multichannel operations provide various avenues for customer interaction; however, existing literature investigating customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) mainly focuses on a single channel. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the spillover effect of CCI and potential underlying mediating mechanisms in different information channels.

Three between-subjects experiments with 946 participants were employed to empirically validate the proposed hypotheses in the context of an experiential product and a material product.

Results suggest the clear spillover effect of CCI, indicating that positive CCI improves focal customers' satisfaction and purchase intention, whereas negative CCI reduces focal customers' satisfaction and purchase intention. Moreover, CCI's spillover effect varies based on the CCI channel. Offline CCI has a stronger positive spillover effect than online CCI. Contrarily, online CCI has a stronger negative spillover effect than offline CCI. Customer experience and trust are demonstrated to have mediating roles in this process.

This study is the first to comprehensively understand and compare the CCI spillover effect of the two information channels. The findings add to the existing knowledge of information processing in the psychological mechanisms influencing the belief in addition to providing insights for companies engaged in multichannel operations management across different channels.

The purpose of this study is to investigate older shopper behavior in a retail environment. The study focused on how the environment elements of supermarket stores influence older customers to interact with other customers when they shop for groceries.

Various qualitative research techniques were undertaken, including interviews with retail architecture experts, store employees, a psychologist and a gerontologist; in addition, five interviews followed by three focus groups were conducted with older shoppers in Brazil.

Customer-to-customer interactions that are related to the environment elements of supermarkets tend to influence the shopping experience of the older shoppers, which has an impact on satisfaction. Although some customers may value social contact, some interactions can involve discomfort and embarrassment.

The study sheds light on the understanding of the influence of the environment elements of supermarket stores on customer-to-customer interactions, and it proposes such interactions to be a relevant strategy that is used by older customers to maximize their satisfaction, although such strategies can also lead to dissatisfaction.

The findings provide insights regarding the specific needs of older customers in a supermarket context, associated with the design and ambient elements of the store environment, which can be valuable for retailers and policy-makers.

Considering the limited understanding of older shoppers and their experiences, this study provides a thorough understanding of how the retail environment can influence customer-to-customer interactions that involve older shoppers. Moreover, the study captures how interactions, which are influenced by the retail environment, can result in dissatisfaction; however, such interactions can also be used by older customers to modify their satisfaction with the shopping experience.

To empirically examine the development and influence that customer‐to‐customer interactions (CCI) have in a high personal contact setting.

Using responses from patrons of different hair salons, the role that salon atmospherics had on the formation of CCI was assessed. Then, the relative influence of CCI on satisfaction with the firm, loyalty to the firm and firm word‐of‐mouth, in a model of service outcomes, was examined.

Results indicate that atmospherics do influence CCI, which in turn is a strong predictor of loyalty to the firm and positive word‐of‐mouth.

Care should be taken when generalizing these findings to other service settings. It should be noted that all female respondents were generally more educated and had higher incomes than the general population.

This study suggests that positive perceptions of atmospherics will lead to positive CCI effects. If managers determine that they would like to enhance the quality of CCI, they should incorporate changes to the physical settings that enhance the type of interactions they desire.

In terms of how to assess CCI, the authors provide a simple four‐item scale which can be used by managers to assess the degree in which their customers interact and the effect that the interaction has on their experience.

This study aims to provide service managers and researchers with a deeper understanding of the direct on-site interactions taking place between customers.

Using the Critical Incident Technique (CIT), 284 incidents are analysed to develop a typology of how service customers experience direct on-site CCI.

The research reveals a wide range of CCI. A typology consisting of nine distinct categories of CCI emerged: (1) shared use space, (2) assigned space and possessions, (3) information provision, (4) assistance, (5) social conversations, (6) disrespectful attitude, (7) queuing discipline, (8) transaction efficiency and (9) undesired customers and ‘camouflaged customers’. These categories can accommodate a multitude of customer behaviours that impact, negatively or positively, on the service experience of other customers.

Future studies could be conducted following a more inclusive research design capable of gaining CCI insights from employees and managers.

Practitioners can use the typology to systematically identify the full range of specific CCI behaviours affecting their businesses. It also assists them in the analysis and understanding of individual C2C (customer-to-customer) interactions. For academics the typology makes available a comprehensive framework to guide future research into CCI.

The study constitutes the first systematic attempt to classify direct on-site CCI across a wide range of services. The typology, unrestricted by any single-industry bias, is robust and conceptually broad, and therefore highly portable across service industries.

This paper aims to identify new directions for research into customer‐to‐customer interaction (CCI). It also aims to examine thematically the main achievements of two decades of CCI research.

Consultations both with CCI experts and with experts from a selection of management fields were undertaken. A selective literature review, based on an extensive search of the CCI literature, was conducted.

A large number of opportunities for future investigation are identified. A significant quantity of CCI literature is revealed. CCI is shown to be conceptually quite complex. Convincing evidence supports the claim that CCI has now joined the mainstream of services marketing.

For service management researchers, a number of service management topics, such as service recovery, SST, e‐service, and ergonomics, are shown to have CCI‐related aspects worthy of research attention. For service managers, the emphasis on showing the relevance of CCI, and the possibilities for influencing CCI, should encourage them to incorporate CCI considerations into their strategic and operational plans.

The wide‐ranging proposals for future research into CCI will undoubtedly stimulate investigation of many new avenues of CCI. Service management researchers are provided with a concise, thematic guide to the most influential CCI literature; the article contributes to the service‐dominant logic literature by broadening the discussion of the customer as an operant resource.

This study aims to examine whether indirect customer-to-customer interactions (CCI) affect consumers’ behavioral intentions and how that effect is generated. It also explores the effect of dining experience on customer behavioral intentions and how that effect varies by party type.

The research consists of an experimental survey-based study of n = 491 real-world consumers from a marketing research panel. Structural equation models are analyzed to examine hypothesized relationships.

Indirect CCIs significantly affect all five dimensions of experiential value. Food and beverage (F&B) excellence, aesthetics and service excellence positively affect customer revisit intentions and word-of-mouth intentions via restaurant image. Furthermore, party type moderates the effect of aesthetics on behavioral intentions so that the effect is significant for the social diner group only. Customer return on investment and playfulness show non-significant impacts on behavioral intentions.

Managers should be aware that indirect CCIs influence all aspects of the restaurant experience. Since F&B excellence, aesthetics and service excellence affect restaurant image and behavioral intentions, management can operationalize these elements of service. The impact of aesthetics differs by consumers’ party type, enabling management to create unique servicescapes based on their target customer segment.

The study pioneers an investigation of how indirect CCI is associated with behavioral intentions through the mediating effects of experiential value and restaurant image. It contributes to the literature by examining how the impact of diners’ experiences differs by party type.