Hedonic and Utilitarian Values Behind Engagement of Online Consumers

In the hyper-competitive Indian airline industry, the low-cost carriers as well as full-service airlines are in dire need of innovative marketing strategies to engage their customers. To understand the dynamics behind the process of customer engagement, the purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the lived experience of consumers about their online air-ticket bookings experiences. In total, 60 frequent air travellers were approached to participate in the study and the self-completion diary method was incorporated to record their ticket booking experiences. The responses recorded in the diaries were analyzed on the basis of their content from which eight themes were derived. The findings bring forth the importance of hedonic experiential values along with utilitarian experiential values toward the engagement of customers during the online air-ticket booking process. The current study is one of the pioneers in conceptualization of customer engagement as a third-order construct by uncovering the sub-dimensions of the second order factors—utilitarian and hedonic experiential values.