Customer service co-creation literacy for better service value: evidence from the health-care sector

Abstract

Purpose

Understanding customers’ expertise for better service co-creation is of great importance. To be an effective co-creator, customers need to have much more knowledge than a basic literacy, which is appropriate for passive service consumption. This paper aims to propose the concept of customer service co-creation literacy (SCL) to capture not only the basic expertise but also the expertise for active service co-creation. This study then investigates how SCL can be cultivated and how it facilitates customer co-creation behavior, which subsequently leads to enhanced value.

Design/methodology/approach

A conceptual model was developed and tested in the health-care service context using a sample of 310 patients. CB-SEM/AMOS software package was used for data analysis.

Findings

SCL has different impacts on three components of co-creation behavior, which in turn influence the service value differently. SCL not only solely facilitates co-creation behavior but also directly increases customer value. SCL can be cultivated by social support and frontline employee interaction.

Practical implications

The findings offer managerial and societal implications for cognitive interventions to develop customers’ SCL, which is aligned to customers’ needed literacy for co-creation and well-being.

Originality/value

The newly proposed concept of SCL is shown to be more appropriate in research adopting the service-dominant logic. Its importance as one type of customer operant resource for value co-creation is underscored. Findings also uncover how other actors indirectly contribute to customers’ value co-creation via developing their SCL resources.

Citation

Pham, T.-A.N., Le, H.N., Nguyen, D.T. and Pham, T.N. (2022), "Customer service co-creation literacy for better service value: evidence from the health-care sector", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 7, pp. 940-951. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-09-2021-0323