It has become fashionable these days for organisations to involve customers in the creation of the entire service experience. Over the past two decades, the phenomenon referred to as co-creation has become much more than a buzzword. It is now, more than ever, a strategy adopted by many business. It has even been argued by some that the goal of business is not to create value for customers but to mobilise customers to co-create value. Some have even defined co-creation as the next frontier in competitiveness. In other words, the business that is better able to involve its customers in creating the service experience is the business that would lead on the market.
According to experts, the days when customers were passive receivers of service are long gone. Today’s customers, so empowered by increase in competition and a superfluity of valuable information, want to be part of the service creation process. The advantages of involving customers in the service experience process, especially for those services that are high contact, are quite impressive.
Among the benefits, it has been noted that when customers take part in the co-creation of the service, they tend to become a lot more attached emotionally to the outcome of the creation. The strong emotional bond means that even if things do not go according to plan, the customer is less likely to be upset at the business.
It has also been found that when customers are part of the process, they tend to have a higher valuation of the final result. Customers will give a higher rating to the quality of a service that they have a hand in. This particular benefit is not too surprising since it is a normal human tendency to value that which we own or have an interest in.
Additionally, because the customer becomes involved in the creation, the one is able to ensure that his or her personal preferences are considered. Increased customisation and increased control of the service situation are the fruits of service co-creation. For instance, there are certain hospitals where doctors actively involve patients in seeking cures to various ailments. The advantage is that the patient would know more about his or her condition and so there is a greater possibility of customising the treatment for the one.
Then there are instances of customers seeking financial advice contributing to the final decision to be taken. Such a customer will know exactly what he or she wants and so the resulting decision is one the customer has more control over. It is even true that in such situations, the customer can even act as supervisor of a sort in the encounter. Since the matter directly has to do with the customer, it is not out of place for the customer to play a leading role in any discussion. After all, who knows a person’s life better than the one?
An added advantage too is that by working closely with the customer, the business is able to better know the needs and preferences of the customer. This information becomes very useful in subsequent transactions between the business and the customer. In short, co-creation brings the business and customer closer.
It also has to be mentioned that getting customers to put in some effort into the creation of the service experience also comes with some cost savings for the business. The customer becomes a sort of employee of the company—an employee without pay. The job that would have been done by an additional employee is now being done by a customer and the customer will not come with any additional cost.
But it is not all rosy. Customer participation in the service creation process has its drawbacks. At least, that is what researchers are telling us. As a matter of fact, one group of researchers claimed customer participation has a “dark” side. In another study, the researchers suggested that customer participation was a double-edged sword.
According to the studies conducted on the matter, customer participation comes with stress—stress for both the customer and the employee serving the customer. As a matter of fact, the term “Customer Participation Stress” has been coined to define the specific stress that comes with customers’ participation in the service creation process. Over the years, many studies have been carried out on the phenomenon of customer participation stress. The sheer number of studies is a clear indication of the importance of the subject matter amidst the growing importance of service co-creation.
In a study published in a 2005 edition of The Service Industries Journal, researchers concluded that customer participation was positively related to perceived job stress. “The Effect of Customer Participation on Service Providers’ Job Stress” was the title of the study. The study was carried out among customers and employees of more than 6o Taiwanese restaurants. According to the study, the stress is not so much as a result of the workload but actually the stress was from the role conflict that employees deal with. The truth is that there is really no written set of rules and regulations clearly laying out who does what in the co-creation process. Not knowing who does what is enough to cause stress to both the customer and the business professional.
Another study which touched on the matter was published in the May 2010 edition of the Journal of Marketing. In the study titled “Is Customer Participation in Value Creation a Double-Edged Sword? Evidence from Professional Financial Services across Cultures”, it was concluded that customer participation also led to stress for employees.
As customers become more and more involved in the service creation process, there is a shift of power from employees to customers. For instance, knowledge that hitherto was only available to employees was going to be made available to customers as well. There is a tendency for employees to suffer from role ambiguity. Employees might begin to have issues with what their roles are supposed to be.
Some employees might even begin to wonder if they are needed on the job at all or if their jobs are on the line. For many employees, this situation would be perceived as a loss of power. For employees who are not used to giving control over to anyone, this situation can create lots of stress. Some employees might even struggle over control with customers. It is not even uncommon these days to have patients with a little knowledge over their ailments argue with their physicians over the kind of treatment being recommended.
There was another study carried out in the banking industry in Central China that further concluded that customer participation led to stress for employees. However, according to the study, the stress was mainly as a result of the inconsistency in the expectations of the roles that were to be played by the customer and the employee. Not knowing the extent to which the customer is to be involved in the co-creation can create a stressful situation for the service provider. That particular study was titled “How does customer participation in service influence customer satisfaction? The mediating effects of role stressors”. The study was published in a 2019 edition of International Journal of Bank Marketing.
In another research piece published in the February 2022 edition of Journal of Service Management Research, it was asserted that customer participation actually comes with stress. The study was titled “Customer Participation Stress in Service Encounters: Developing a Customer Participation Demands-Resources Model”. The study was carried among customers of a retail bank in Germany. In attempting to come up with an explanation for customer participation stress, the researchers stated that participation demands customers to put in some resources of their own. The deployment of these resources might even come with some stress for the customer.
In an era of increasingly-powerful customers, it becomes important for professionals to be much more accommodating of whatever customers come up with in the co-creation process. In effect, service co-creation demands customer-handling professionals to engage in much more emotional labour than they would normally have had to deal with. It can be very difficult for some of these service professionals to remain calm, composed and polite while customers contribute to the service creation, with little knowledge about case at hand. The fallout from all of that is job dissatisfaction for service employees, leading to more stress.
From the list of studies above, it is clear that the phenomenon of customer participation stress is quite widespread, as it occurs in different countries all around the world. It is also clear that job burnout and reduced productivity are eventual outcomes of customer participation stress. Those who cannot take all the stress from customer participation might just decide to walk away from it all. Resignations and turnover are the final outcomes.
Evidently, getting customers to take part in the service creation process has benefits that are much needed in the ultra-competitive times we find ourselves in. It is true that customer participation in the service creation process is not necessarily a key to customer satisfaction. There is enough proof that customer satisfaction requires much more. The few thorny issues such as the potential for customer participation stress should not put off organisations from the idea of co-creation. What businesses should rather do is to find the stressors and to find ways to either eliminate or, in the very least, reduce their effects.
