IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijpqma/v30y2020i3p323-342.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determining optimum customer participation level in services: perceptual biases and congruence

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmet Semih Ozkul
  • Uzay Damali
  • Anup Menon Nandialath
  • Andrew M. Stapleton

Abstract

The effect of increased customer participation on service quality remains an enduring dialogue in the services literature. We study the relationship between increased customer participation (i.e., customer workload) and service quality from the theoretical lens of perceptual congruence, a perceptual state in which a customer and a front-line employee have similar perceptions of a co-produced service output. We use an analytical model that relates customer work allocation to perceptual congruence through perceptual biases of a customer and employee. Based on our model, we identify four cases for the service design and present strategies to increase customer work allocation while keeping the perceptual congruence. While the term 'bias' may have a negative connotation, proper management of perceptual biases could allow a service to increase customer work allocation and achieve perceptual congruence at the same time.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmet Semih Ozkul & Uzay Damali & Anup Menon Nandialath & Andrew M. Stapleton, 2020. "Determining optimum customer participation level in services: perceptual biases and congruence," International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 30(3), pages 323-342.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijpqma:v:30:y:2020:i:3:p:323-342
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=108378
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijpqma:v:30:y:2020:i:3:p:323-342. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=177 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.