مسیر هموارشده وفاداری مشتری با سفارشی سازی خدمات  The road to customer loyalty paved with service customization

1. Introduction Recent discussions in the popular press are sounding the alarm that today’s customers expect customization. As noted by Reed (2014, p. 43), “Consumers expect real-time, customized everything at any touch point.” The PricewaterhouseCoopers and TNS Retail Forward (2015) report offers additional evidence of this trend, reporting that customers are proactively pursuing individualized products and services. This movement has not been overlooked by practitioners; instead, some firms have reacted by including customization as key part of their marketing strategy. For instance, customization and personalization of products plays a major role in Nike’s $7 billion online expansion plans (Comstock, 2015). In fact, Nike CEO Mark Parker predicts such individualization is becoming a mainstream customer demand, “Customization is one of those expectations…that consumers will have of their product going forward, so we intend not to just participate but to lead in that area” (Ghosh, 2015). Given the growing trend in customization, a need exists for researchers and practitioners to respond. The services literature recognizes that frontline employees are often the party responsible for meeting customers’ idiosyncratic needs and identifies two dimensions of employee customization efforts (Gwinner, Bitner, Brown, & Kumar, 2005). One dimension is to customize the service process, which involves frontline employees (FLE hereafter) guiding customers through the decision-making process and adapting to customer needs as they search for, identify and consider various solutions. A second dimension is to customize the service offering (i.e., the product or service), which results in a unique bundle of benefits designed specifically for customers. Both dimensions are in accordance with the definition of service customization, which is defined as “any behaviors occurring in the interaction intended to contribute to the individuation of the customer” (Suprenant & Solomon, 1987, p. 87). Despite scholars’ long-held interest in service customization and its managerial relevance, limited research investigates why service customization produces positive relational outcomes (Coelho & Henseler, 2012; Suprenant & Solomon, 1987). Thus, the current research addresses this gap by examining how both dimensions of service customization influence customer loyalty. This work contributes to the marketing literature in three important ways. First, extant research provides little guidance on understanding the mechanisms responsible for the effect of adaptation practices on loyalty (Coelho & Henseler, 2012). To date, only cognitive explanations, such as the important relational component of trust (Ball, Coelho, & Vilares, 2006; Coelho & Henseler, 2012), have been considered. This research contributes by demonstrating that both cognitive (trust) and affective (emotions) mechanisms can account for the effects of customization on loyalty, and indeed emotions represent a missing link between customization and trust. Second, extant research fails to simultaneously assess both types of service customization on relational outcomes; therefore, this research adds to the literature by examining each type of customization in isolation and in combination. Third, research on interpersonal adaptive behavior tends to be studied from the employee perspective, rarely considering the customer’s view of his type of adaptation in relation to adapting the product or service offering. Thus, the current research contributes by examining customization through the customer’s lens.