The purpose of this section (4.1) is to point out eventual alternative directions for the three papers respectively and to forward a few reflections over the research presented in the three papers.
Paper 1. Question: What is the nature of CEB?
The findings in the first paper have important implications for the hitherto dominant presentation of what constitutes to the nature of CEB (Van Doorn et al. 2010, p. 255). Van Doorn and colleagues 2010 provide a valuable and detailed descriptive overview over all possible elements related to the nature of CEB (for instance; the place CEB is manifested, the target group for the CEB manifestation or the valence of the CEB manifestation).
Such a descriptive list (Van Doorn et al. 2010) is of value, when one aspires to familiarize oneself with the topic CEB, but it doesn’t provide insights into whether some of the pointed out elements are more or less dominant or whether some of the pointed out elements are inter-related, or how the elements could be contextually determined.
Furthermore, despite the list provided by the authors is comprehensive, it is not necessarily exhaustive. Hence, there might be other elements, which are of relevance when discussing the nature of CEB. >> It might be relevant to investigate ‘the nature of CEB’ by adopting ‘a true’
grounded theory approach to unveil hitherto not identified issues and elements somehow related to CEB. The approach adopted in ‘Paper 1’ does indeed lead to novel insights of relevance, when one aspires to understand ‘the nature of CEB better’, but still it is recognized that the current approach to some degree is guided by the existing literature. It is conceivable that further insights would appear by completely detaching the approach from for instance the framework suggested by Van Doorn and colleagues (2010).
The findings in ‘Paper 1’ point out how a customer’s interaction mode assists him or her in achieving the goal with being active at a certain touch-point. ‘Customers’ interaction
modes’ is a novel element in the discussion of what constitutes to the nature of CEB. A customer’s interaction mode is however not always stable across touch-points (and service providers) because the customer’s goal with being active at a touch-point often varies. A customer who for instance wants to give feedback to the firm and decides to call the call centre might take up an interaction mode, which is pro-active. At a later instance the same customer wants to tell his/her friends about the interaction with the firm and takes up an
entertaining interaction mode when participating in word of mouth (because he/she wants to entertain at a dinner-party or other social event). >> It might be worth investigating the issue of customers’ unstable behaviors further both across touch-points and across types of service providers. Furthermore, it might be worth investigating the nature of CEB in a manner, not linked to a certain touch-point or across touch-points. This would probably yield even more subjective meanings to the understanding of the phenomenon CEB and hence provide an elaborated understanding of the nature of CEB.
The key finding in ‘Paper 1’ revolves around customers’ goal-mode integration.
Customers’ goal oriented behaviors determine the touch-point in which they manifest CEB and interaction mode assists customers in achieving their goals when being active at the touch-point. This finding entails that the various other elements (valence, modality, scope, impact and target of CEB ) in the hitherto dominant presentation of the nature of CEB (Van Doorn and colleagues 2010) become implicit in the ‘customer goal-mode integration’ and in various ways are means to an end when customers manifest CEB. >> It might be fruitful and an alternative approach to deduce the existing model suggested by Van Doorn and colleagues (2010) in the light of the findings in paper 1.
Finally, it might be relevant to consider how the notion of ‘the nature of CEB’ fits into the larger system of what is recognized to describe and surround CEB. Several authors
(Bijmolt et al. 2010;Van Doorn et al. 2010; Verhoef, Reinartz and Krafft 2010;) writing about CEB are focusing at the antecedents for CEB, the CEB behaviors and consequences of CEB.
The findings in ‘Paper 1’ and the reflections addressed above, might however suggest that CEB could be understood also from other point of departures, than ‘before, during and after’
CEB.
The nature of CEB and the system in which it lives is probably not a matter of linearity or pre-figured sequences, but rather a matter of inconsistency and no pre-figuration of
sequences. Putting it at the edge; the linearity suggested in the dominant CEB literature might be counter-productive for obtaining an understanding of CEB. The linear model suggests that
‘something’ precedes CEB, and that ‘something’ is a consequence of CEB. It is obvious that a satisfied customer is more likely to manifest positive valenced CEB, and that the consequence for the firm would be favorable. The problem is however, that the nature of CEB is not stable across touch-points why the linear way of thinking about CEB is far too simplified to be of
real value when one wants to understand what the nature of CEB is really about (beyond the obvious).
Paper 2. Question: How and why are CEX and CEB connected?
The second paper investigates the rather novel research domain ‘CEB’ in the light of a mature research domain ‘customer experience’. Customer experience as a research domain has enjoyed longstanding attention in literature (Lemon and Verhoef 2016) and customer experience has over time been discussed in multiple ways (cf. for instance the review section in ‘Paper 2’). However, customer experience – CEB connectivity has hitherto not been investigated.
‘Paper 2’ takes up the challenge to investigate the connectivity between customer experience and CEB and presents eight scenarios where customers are experiencing something and manifesting CEB in various ways. Each scenario hence presents a type of customer experience – CEB connectivity.
It can be observed that the conceptualization of CEX-CEB connectivity ( Figure 1.
‘Conceptualization of CEX-CEB connectivity in continuous service relationships’ in ‘Paper 2’) is based on dominant concepts in the extant customer experience literature (Rational, Emotional, Flow and Extra-ordinary experiences). Here, it becomes evident that ‘Paper 2’
is crafted with the aim to contribute to the CEB literature in the light of (existing concepts in) the mature customer experience literature. It furthermore becomes evident that the
experiences reported by the informants are organized into the existing customer experience concepts based on an evaluation by the research team. The evaluation was carried out with the greatest caution and alternatives (other customer experience concepts like Pine and Gilmore (1998) and Caru and Cova (2003)) were discussed. >> It is conceivable that had the
interviews with informants been based on a fully fledged inductive approach and/or made use of other techniques such as projective techniques to facilitate informants’ narratives about their inner world, the findings would have pointed towards other types of customer
experiences (of a less functional nature) reflecting for instance the customers’ introspective accounts of their feeling and emotions when manifesting CEB, as well as the feelings and emotions before and after a certain CEB manifestation. It is possible findings would for instance reveal mediating effects of CEB at the individual level; such as stress-reducing effects of word of mouth manifestations with individuals, who feels neglected by the firm; or
relief of cognitive dissonance via feedback from individuals to correct a perceived mistake by the firm.
Paper 3. Question: How to manage CEB?
The third paper takes up the challenge to provide a managerial solution suitable to business managers who wants to improve the management of the potentially valuable CEB manifestations. ‘Paper 3’ adopts a comparative approach with the aim to become informed of the firm’s current modus operandi for initiating CEB, and to understand how customers manifest CEB, ultimately to clarify drivers and barriers for favorable CEB on both sides. The objective is to arrive at a managerial solution, which reduces barriers and builds upon drivers for favorable CEB to enhance mutual value creation via CEB.
The third paper is the result of a comparative study focusing at a telecommunication firm and its customers. CEB manifestations are in this thesis relaxed to include also the financial transactions (following Kumar and colleagues 2010), which could make good sense in a business environment characterized by an emphasis upon transactional exchange (in particular by the firm) . The crafting of ‘Paper 3’ furthermore takes point of departure in a currently widely adopted framework for managing customers numerous behaviors, namely the concept of ‘customer journey’ revolving around the financial exchange. These building blocks in
‘Paper 3’ provides for a realistic and managerial rooted approach to the topic. ‘How to manage CEB?’. >> It is however conceivable that the findings could be developed further by investigating also the implementation challenge inside the organization. Furthermore it might be relevant to discuss CEB management and the implementation challenge also in the light of multi-channel literature (e.g. Neslin and Shankar 2009) and literature concerning integrated marketing communication (e.g. Rakic and Rakic 2014) to put CEB management into a broader managerial perspective within the firm’s challenges related to marketing and channel optimization.