When Customers Receive Support From Other Customers: Exploring the Influence of Intercustomer Social Support on Customer Voluntary Performance

Abstract

Service establishments would relish the opportunity to have their customers display customer voluntary performance (CVP) behaviors, which refer to helpful, discretionary customer behaviors that support an organization's service performance and quality. This article draws on resource exchange theory to offer an explanation as to why some customers display CVP in the form of customer citizenship and customer care behaviors. The data reveal that customers who receive social-emotional support and, to a lesser extent, instrumental support from other customers in a service establishment reciprocate by exhibiting CVP toward the establishment and to customers in the establishment. This article demonstrates that socially supportive service environments are beneficial for customers' health and for organizational profitability."When men are thus knit together, by a love of society, not a spirit of faction, and don't meet to censure or annoy those who are absent, but to enjoy one another: when they are thus combined for their own improvement, or for the good of others, or at least to relax themselves from the Business of the Day, by an innocent and cheerful conversation, there may be something very useful in these little Institutions and Establishments."Joseph Addison (as quoted in Oldenburg and Brissett 1982, p. 268) It is 4:30 a.m. on a dark and cold January morning in Chicago. Six older-aged men each sit in their parked cars outside a neighborhood diner. Harriet, a morning waitress, arrives a few minutes later. The men follow Harriet into the restaurant, and they begin their daily routines. One of the men fills the saltshakers, and one fills the sugar containers. Another man assembles the crayons for each child's menu, and another fills the ketchup bottles. By 5:30 a.m., Harriet and the men have completed their tasks, and the restaurant opens for business. The men take their usual positions at the counter, order breakfast, and kibitz among one another. The men begin to depart at 9 a.m., knowing that they will meet again the following morning.Many service organizations would relish the idea of customers not only displaying loyalty to their firms but also voluntarily performing helping behaviors that improve their firms' service performance and quality.

Understanding consumer-to-consumer interactions in virtual communities: The salience of reciprocity

“…This conceptualization matches previous organizational citizenship behavior and consumer voluntary performance research, which view reciprocity as extra-role behaviors that are not contractual bound and will not receive formal rewards (Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007). For example, consumers who receive socio-emotional support from other consumers reciprocate by displaying helpful and discretionary behaviors that enhance the organization's service performance and quality (Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007). The underlying premise of this phenomenon states that recipients of positive actions or resources experience a sense of indebtedness they can reduce only through reciprocation (Dahl et al, 2005).…”

“…Relationship building in turn creates social capital in VCs that consumers can retrieve when they need help (Mathwick et al, 2008). Rosenbaum and Massiah (2007) also suggest that consumers who receive social support exhibit reciprocating behaviors to demonstrate their appreciation. Similarly, Wasko and Faraj (2005) show that people with high network centrality (strong social ties) contribute more to the development of VCs by helping other members, such as sharing knowledge with them.…”

Achieving favourable customer outcomes through employee deviance

“…Likewise, when employees squander organizational resources to bestow the customer with illegitimate benefits, not available to other customers, as a mean to fulfil their objectives (Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2007), deviant use of resources is also anticipated to reduce perceived procedural justice.…”

“…Vice versa, the provision of illegitimate information to customers might have a dual impact on consumers. Whereas customers might appreciate employee's transparent and honest verbal communication about the organization and its products (Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2007), pro-customer deviance might also trigger higher cognitive dissonance, as the info customers receive might contradict their existing beliefs about the organization (O'Neill & Palmer, 2004 …”

Untitled

“…CCB has been investigated in the service marketing literature under various names, including customer discretionary behavior (Ford, 1995), customer extra-role behaviors (Ahearne, Bhattacharya, & Gruen, 2005;Tat Keh & Wei Teo, 2001), customer voluntary performance (Bettencourt, 1997;Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2007), and organization citizenship behavior of clients (Lengnick-Hall, Claycomb, & Inks, 2000). The service marketing literature identified several forms of customer citizenship behavior.…”