Self-deservingness and Satisfaction in Co-creative Customer-Brand Relationships: An Abstract

Abstract

This study investigates the role of consumer judgement of self-deservingness in customer-brand relationships which require high levels of consumer effort in co-creation to optimise product value or benefit. Whilst there is a precedent for applying deservingness theory to self-reflexive judgement in social psychology, and affective responses to judgements of balance/imbalance between actions and outcomes have been examined (Feather and McKee 2009), deservingness has not previously been investigated in relation to satisfaction in customer-brand relationships (Mick and Faure 1998; Pancer et al. 2017). Deservingness theory may be particularly relevant in customer-brand relationships which are highly collaborative or involve co-creation of value experiences and outcomes (Vargo and Lusch 2008; Wagner et al. 2010). In such relationships, customer effort is key to the product or service achieving optimum outcomes, but can be variable and jeopardise brand performance if effort exerted by the consumer is insufficient or unsustained (Hibbert et al. 2012). The relationship between customer effort, satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, has recently been highlighted in a health care context (Gallan et al. 2013; Sweeney et al. 2015). When a high level of consumer effort is required to optimise brand performance, consumers tend to assume a portion of the blame when outcomes are sub-optimal (Pacheco et al. 2017). The aim of this study is to investigate how consumers’ self-reflexive judgement of deservingness, based on perceptions of their own high or low effort in co-creating outcomes, may impact customer satisfaction and future behaviour. Data are derived from interviews with 14 commercial weight-loss program users. Self-deservingness manifested in four contexts, namely: (a) Deserving good outcomes due to high levels of effort; (b) Not deserving good outcomes due to low levels of effort; (c) Deserving poor outcomes due to low levels of effort; (d) Deserving better outcomes than those achieved due to high effort. These insights led to the development of a theoretical model demonstrating the potential role of consumer judgement of self-deservingness in impacting customer satisfaction and subsequent behavioural intentions towards the brand. The model suggests that, for brands involving consumer effort in co-creation, there are three pathways towards customer satisfaction and only one which results in dissatisfaction. Importantly, consumer perception of how much effort they have exerted is likely to depend on how much effort they believed would be required, which can be influenced by the marketing process. The study is the first known investigation of deservingness theory in marketing at the level of consumers’ self-judgement. The theoretical model arising from the study has potential for further empirical study and practical application in marketing management to improve customer-brand relationships.