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Explains that public libraries with well‐established library systems have flourished in Taiwan during the past four decades owing to economic prosperity. Points out that despite this, less than one‐tenth of the population in the community served by these libraries have registered as library users. Suggests that this relatively low level of use by customers may be due to a lack of awareness of the services that the public library has to offer. Proposes an effective approach to designing marketing strategies to incorporate marketing channels, corresponding communications messages and service quality dimensions, in order to promote the use of library services, and thus change the use pattern of current customers. Uses involvement segmentation and a hierarchy‐of‐effects paradigm.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of other customer perception (OCP) (Brocato et al., 2012) on focal customer’s service quality perception and revisit intention in high- and low-involvement services and the effect of customer’s need for uniqueness (NFU) as a boundary condition of the above relationships.

Following a theoretical methodology, hypotheses were developed to analyze the effect of OCP, service involvement and customer’s NFU. A 2 × 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment was designed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses.

The analysis reveals that the presence of conforming (versus non-conforming) other customers improves service quality perception and revisit intention of focal customers in high-involvement services, but not in low-involvement services. However, the relationship between similarity perception and outcome variables does not hold good for high-NFU customers.

This study suggests that conforming and non-conforming other customers are critical in forming service quality perception of high-involvement services, and highlights the boundary condition of this relationship. If service managers take service involvement and individual differences into account, and strategize their service offering aligned to their target customers, influence of other customers can be managed more efficiently.

As this study is one of the first empirical studies to focus on the effect of OCP on service quality perception and examine its boundary condition, it contributes significantly to the body of knowledge. Future research directions are discussed and managerial implications are proposed.

The purpose of this study is to determine which level of tangible compensation for a service failure leads to high levels of customer satisfaction for moderate- versus high-involvement services as well as for different conditions of responsibility for the failure and failure severity.

The study is based on a 4 (tangible compensation: gift, discount, credit for future consumption, refund) × 2 (responsibility for the failure: restaurant vs customer) × 2 (failure severity: low vs high) × 2 (involvement: moderate vs high) design using scenarios in a restaurant context.

The results reveal that, for moderate-involvement services, all types of compensation are equally appropriate, except for when customers are responsible for a severe failure. In this condition, they expect tangible compensation of higher benefit. For high-involvement services, the more severe the failure, the higher the benefit of tangible compensation should be, independent of responsibility.

The findings suggest that managers should consider the level of service involvement as well as responsibility for and severity of the failure when choosing the level of tangible compensation.

The results of this study provide new insights into how to choose appropriate and efficient service recovery measures.

A relevant, timely issue in the professional services area is that of marketing. Should professional service providers actively market their services? And, if so, how? Many professionals have already stepped into the marketing arena, but without first understanding the nature of their target market(s). This article concentrates on one area of the user market that should be known and understood by all professional service marketers: What level of consumer interest or perceived personal importance typifies the purchase of a professional service?

The study seeks to examine two variables of interest to marketers in the area of services advertising, ethnicity and service involvement. The goal of this study is to investigate the relative effectiveness of ethnic‐targeting in services advertising, specifically, Hispanic‐targeted advertising. The purpose of this research is to understand what types of services can benefit from Hispanic‐targeted service advertising and develop practical implications for practitioners trying to spend advertising dollars more efficiently.

The impact of the advertising model's ethnicity on post‐exposure attitude toward high and low involvement service brands was explored.

The results of this quasi‐experimental study suggest that appealing to strong Hispanic identifiers may be highly desirable in terms of creating favorable attitudes toward service brands when advertising low involvement services, where, by definition, the consumer does not engage in intensive decision making and considers few attributes. Since few attributes are evaluated, obvious attributes such as ethnicity can easily influence choice. Finally, the findings of this study suggest that employing Hispanic‐targeted advertising may not be an effective strategy in promoting high‐involvement services since consumers consider more attributes and, therefore, ethnicity does not play a major role.

Of interest to marketers in the area of services advertising, ethnicity and service involvement.

This paper describes how service user involvement at all levels can offer a different route for the provision of good quality care for people experiencing mental distress. Taking examples of service user involvement in the acute solutions project (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Heath, 2006), the paper demonstrates how effective involvement can bring about measurable change in service provision and patient satisfaction. Examining the benefits, barriers to, and practicalities of service user involvement, it is argued that placing involvement at the centre offers solutions to the persistent problems found in mental health services. Workers who value and facilitate effective service user involvement enable social inclusion, change service users' status and enrich their own lives and practice.

Secure mental health services in one UK region have acted within a network to develop a range of involvement practices. A new quality benchmarking tool has been created to appraise the implementation of these involvement practices. The purpose of this paper is to report upon a qualitative evaluation of this development.

Staff and service users involved in the co-production of the benchmarking tool were engaged in a series of focus groups and participatory inquiry approaches enacted in the course of scheduled network meetings. Data thus collected was subject to thematic analysis.

Four distinct themes were identified which were titled: Taking time, taking care; The value not the label; An instrument of the network; and All people working together. These are discussed in relation to recent theorising of co-production.

Effectively, this study represents a case study of developments within one region. As such, the findings may have limited transferability to other contexts.

Staff and service users can work together effectively to the benefit of each other and overall forensic services. The benchmarking tool provides a readymade mechanism to appraise quality improvements.

Despite a prevailing culture of competition in wider health-care policy, cooperation leads to enhanced quality.

The benchmarking tool is a unique development of a longstanding involvement network, demonstrating the positive implications for enacting co-production within secure services.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how service brand loyalty can be enhanced through customer involvement, based on involvement theory and symbolic interaction theory as theoretical backgrounds.

This study investigated how service brand loyalty can be enhanced through customer involvement, based on involvement theory and symbolic interaction theory as theoretical backgrounds.

Results identified customer–brand identification and service value influenced both service brand involvement and service brand-decision involvement. However, self-congruity only influenced customers’ service brand-decision involvement. Results also confirmed that customer involvement positively influenced service brand satisfaction and service brand loyalty.

This study contributed to involvement and brand loyalty research, investigating the role of customer involvement on service brand loyalty.

Results suggested what factors could enhance brand loyalty to gain competitive advantages.

This study proposed and empirically investigated ways to enhance brand loyalty in the context of the coffee shop industry.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise findings of a review of service user and carer involvement in safeguarding and recommendations for good practice.

The study involved a review of selected literature and a consultation exercise with experts in the field of adult safeguarding and telephone interviews with 13 Adult Safeguarding Leads across England and Wales.

Service users value rights, independence, choice and support. Adult Safeguarding policy sets out an expectation of service user involvement in the process and expects agencies to balance rights to self‐determination with properly managed risk. In practice, agencies tend to be risk‐averse and service users often do not feel involved in their safeguarding processes. Processes such as collaborative risk enablement, training and capacity building, working with BME groups and evaluation of involvement help. Good practice examples of involvement in Safeguarding Boards or local forums, developing new methods of user feedback and community involvement were found. Recommendations include more involvement of service users in research, more effective forms of involvement of groups who may be more excluded, shared responsibility for risk, and more training in rights legislation.

The paper offers recommendations for good practice in improving involvement in adult safeguarding, which is a requirement and an essential component of delivering good services to vulnerable adults.

Service user involvement in health and social care is now widespread, but there is little knowledge of how to involve the most vulnerable service users who are in need of protection, or how to balance risk and empowerment. This paper addresses the dilemmas facing Adult Protection staff, summarises the experience of practitioners based on the first decade of adult safeguarding work and sets out guidance for improving practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how those engaged in service user involvement (SUI) initiatives perceive involvement and recovery; whether involvement is related to their recovery process and, if so, how.

An exploratory qualitative method, social constructionist grounded theory, was adopted throughout the research process. Nine semi-structured interviews were undertaken with participants who self-defined as having current or previous mental health problems and who were engaged in SUI initiatives.

Most participants identified explicit links between their own experiences of SUI and recovery. These links represented a connection between the characteristics they perceived to be inherent to involvement and their personal definitions of recovery. In contrast, experiences of consultation and involvement as patient service users was limited and identified as an area for improvement. The core of the tentative grounded theory constructed suggests that individuals found in involvement elements which were concordant with and supported their own definitions of recovery and which were not apparent in their experiences as patients.

The small sample and narrow constituency of participants limit the nature of the claims made by the study.

This study highlights the value of involvement in promoting recovery and indicates the merit of promoting meaningful involvement across the spectrum of the service user experience.

This study offers a unique contribution to the current literature, highlighting the links made between involvement and personal recovery.