Journal of Strategic Marketing

ISSN: 0965-254X (Print) 1466-4488 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjsm20

The engagement of customers beyond their

expected roles

Simon J. Pervan & Liliana L. Bove

To cite this article: Simon J. Pervan & Liliana L. Bove (2011) The engagement of customers
beyond their expected roles, Journal of Strategic Marketing, 19:7, 551-554, DOI:
10.1080/0965254X.2011.599498

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2011.599498

Published online: 25 Nov 2011.

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 Journal of Strategic Marketing
Vol. 19, No. 7, December 2011, 551–554

GUEST EDITORIAL
The engagement of customers beyond their expected roles

In the last 20 years we have witnessed organisations investing in technology and systems
to facilitate customer participation in the production and/or delivery of the service.
Although this increased level of participation was ‘sold’ to the customer in terms of
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benefits such as increased convenience, perceived control, economic and/or time savings
and even enjoyment (Bitner, Brown, & Meuter, 2000; Mills & Morris, 1986) leading to
improved service outcomes, ultimately customers had no choice but to comply as
traditional channels of service delivery were phased out or made too expensive to use.
Indeed, customers could not help but feel that this increased level of effort and required
knowledge was now their expected role.
More recently organisations have begun to appreciate customer participation beyond
their ‘defined’ role. Referred to as customer voluntary performance (Bettencourt, 1997),
customer citizenship behaviour (Groth, 2001) or customer helping behaviours (Johnson &
Rapp, 2010), these terms share the characteristic of being ‘voluntary and discretionary
behavior of individual customers that is not directly or explicitly expected or rewarded but
that, in the aggregate, leads to higher service quality and promotes the effective
functioning of service organizations’ (Groth, 2001, p. 13). Unlike in-role behaviours these
discretionary behaviours can be withheld by customers with little or no effect on the core
service received and thus are not easily managed by firms.
As firms derive added brand value by using customers as an operant resource (Vargo &
Lusch, 2004) it is important to understand the drivers of both in-role and extra role
behaviours. Appreciating that the drivers of ‘willing’ extra role behaviours are different to
‘enforced’ in-role behaviours (Groth, 2005), this special issue takes a small step forward to
gaining a better understanding of both the potential drivers and consequences of customers
engaging beyond their expected roles.
Linda Hollebeek begins the journal by identifying that brand engagement is one route
by which customers can act beyond their expected roles. She defines customer brand
engagement as ‘the level of a customer’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral investment
in specific brand interactions’ (p. 555) and identifies three key themes or dimensions of
brand engagement. These are immersion (being engrossed in, absorbed in or focused on);
passion (being obsessive, loving, adoring, fanatic about); and activation (willingness to
spend significant time and/or effort interacting with the brand).
Adesegun Oyedele and Penny M. Simpson also empirically examine why consumers
may go beyond their prescribed roles and help the service firm. Transferring some of the
findings from the volunteering literature they explore the roles of customer traits such as
self-efficacy and conscientiousness; intrinsic motives such as altruism, social
enhancement and protection; and extrinsic motives such as social norms and incentives
on the likelihood of engaging in shopping-related citizenship behaviours. The customer
citizenship behaviours examined included completing a survey, participating in a research

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 552 Guest Editorial

focus group, returning a shopping cart, assisting with the selection of new features for a
cell phone and returning a shirt back to the correct rack. Incentives were found to only
affect the likelihood to engage in focus group research and assist with the selection of
features for a new cell phone, two tasks which require more effort and time than the others.
This finding somewhat supports the notion that citizenship behaviours are more difficult
for firms to encourage. Indeed, altruism (to help others) and social enhancement (to
improve self-esteem) were two motives that had a significant positive association with the
greatest number of citizenship behaviours.
Although the focus of customer citizenship behaviour has been on the individual,
consumption communities offer another vehicle whereby consumers can venture beyond
their roles. Many consumers seek communal affiliation and are likely to foster it where they
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can (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). Robin Canniford compares and contrasts three types of
consumption communities: subculture, brand and tribe and conceptualises the opportunities
they offer marketers. Subcultures of consumption commit to a product class, brand or
consumption activity to subvert dominant institutions such as family, schooling and market
relations. Brand communities by contrast congregate because they admire the brand. Not
only do brand community members uphold the brand values, but their affiliation, devotion
and commitment to the brand translate to beneficial loyalty behaviours towards the brand
which extend their expected role. One such loyalty behaviour is evangelising, where brand
community ‘members act as altruistic emissaries and ambassadors of good will’ (Schau,
Muniz, & Arnould, 2009, p. 34). Indeed it is here that Hollebeek’s brand engagement fits in.
Furthermore, brand community members feel a strong connection towards one another even
though they have not met, and as such feel a moral responsibility to look out for each other.
They engage in citizenship behaviours which involve helping to fix problems, sharing
information on brand-related resources and generally providing assistance to other
members in their consumption of the brand (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001).
Finally consumer tribes are created through the linking value created during the shared
use of products and services. Whilst through this process members extend their expected
roles through entrepreneurial activities, the multiple brand affiliations, fluid structure and
constant change result in tribal membership that is very often unpredictable and transient.
Hence marketers can only work alongside tribes, respectfully entering tribal life through
the offer of a seed network, a platform or foundation for linking value by which ‘consumers
can play, plunder, build passion, community, and entrepreneurial ventures’ (p. 597).
Building on the theme of consumption communities, Jörg Finsterwalder and Volker G.
Kuppelwieser take a close look at the in-role task contributions by customers and their
influence on extra role customer-to-customer social interactions in a group experience
setting. They demonstrate that perceptions of the degree of task contribution by others,
positively influences an individual’s own task contribution. This in turn positively impacts
the perceived degree of social interaction within the consumer group. Thus presenting some
support that in a group setting where customers are made to share the service experience, the
degree to which individual consumers perform their role expectations, not only influences
the in-role task completion of others, but encourages extra role behaviour in the form of
social interactions within the group which adds value to the consumption experience.
Thus in summary we learn that motives such as altruism and social enhancement can
induce an individual consumer to engage in extra role helpful behaviour. We also learn
that consumption communities, especially brand communities where customers are
engaged with the brand provide an ideal environment for customers to extend beyond their
roles. Even when customers are not engaged with the brand, in a shared service experience
 Journal of Strategic Marketing 553

they may act beyond their prescribed roles if they perceive that other members in the group
are performing their in-role or expected behaviours.
In many ways the next paper by Christian Gilde, Stefano Pace, Simon J. Pervan, and
Carolyn Strong places the previous two in context. Gilde and colleagues ask two questions
identified in the call for papers: (1) what motivates customers to participate beyond their
expected roles? (2) What are the types of customer engagement beyond their expected roles?
In doing so, they explore the boundaries within which customer citizenship behaviour takes
place. Making the assumption that this behaviour is either driven out of self-interest to gain
extra reward from the firm or a feeling of empathy towards an employee, firm or customer, a
framework is developed represented by a four (focus of exchange: focal firm, non-focal firm,
employee, customer) by three (time of exchange: before, during, after) matrix. Using this,
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Gilde et al. point out that much of the literature is based on customer to employee or customer
to focal firm exchanges thus limiting the breadth of behaviour that can be considered extra role
in nature. Exchange between the customer and non-focal firm is identified as a particularly
notable omission. Consumption ritual and marketing hype are presented as extra role
behaviours which will benefit a firm but do not represent exchange between the firm or its
employees rather between the customer and other firms (brands). Canniford’s brand tribes can
be identified within this framework. The interaction is often indirect with deliberate customer
to brand interactions impacting positively on other brands. Finsterwalder et al.’s task contri-
bution study also fits within the framework. This behaviour is customer to customer in focus
yet still benefits the firm. Gilde et al. call for a broader interpretation of customer citizenship
behaviour and present two case studies of UK Premiership Rugby to illustrate one prominent
activity not previously identified as customer citizenship behaviour: consumption rituals.
The final paper explores the potential consequences of customer citizenship behaviours.
Whilst Groth’s definition indicates that the organization benefits from such a behaviour,
Romana Garma and Liliana L. Bove sought to investigate the service workers’ perspective
on the customer behaviour. Interviewing a range of service personnel in the hospitality and
retail industries six categories of discretionary helpful behaviours that were directed at
service personnel were identified, labelled and defined. These included: assumed employee
behaviour, activity that resembles the work performed by service personnel; advocacy,
promoting, recommending or speaking on behalf or in favour of service personnel;
consultancy, providing information with the intention of improving the service offering;
sportsmanship, flexibility or tolerance associated with the service delivery; social support,
behaviours that assist with the ability to cope with stressful situations in the workplace; and
finally courtesy, friendly, sociable or positive behaviour. A description of the benefits
derived from each type of citizenship behaviour appeared to support the authors’ conjecture
that customer citizenship behaviours directed to service personnel contribute to their
subjective well-being by helping them to achieve one or more of the universal goals of
comfort, stimulation, status, behavioural confirmation and affection.
We thank all contributors and reviewers for their work on this special issue. There is still
much to research in this field and we do hope that this collection of excellent papers provides
a sound basis for further endeavour and investigation into the roles that the customer can
play in supporting and, in some cases, achieving strategic outcomes for the organisation.

References
Bettencourt, L.A. (1997). Customer voluntary performance: Customers as partners in service
delivery. Journal of Retailing, 73, 383– 406.
Bitner, M.J., Brown, S.W., & Meuter, M.L. (2000). Technology infusion in service encounters.
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28, 138–149.
 554 Guest Editorial

Groth, M. (2001). Managing service delivery on the internet: Facilitating customers’ coproduction
and citizenship behaviors in service organizations (Doctoral dissertation). University of
Arizona.
Groth, M. (2005). Customers as good soldiers: Examining citizenship behaviors in internet service
deliveries. Journal of Management, 31, 7– 27.
Johnson, J.W., & Rapp, A. (2010). A more comprehensive understanding and measure of customer
helping behavior. Journal of Business Research, 63, 787– 792.
Mills, P.K., & Morris, J.H. (1986). Clients as ‘partial’ employees of service organizations: Role
development in client participation. Academy of Management Review, 11, 726– 735.
Muniz, A.M. Jr, & O’Guinn, T.C. (2001). Brand community. Journal of Consumer Research, 27,
412– 432.
Schau, H.J., Muniz, A.M. Jr, & Arnould, E.J. (2009). How brand community practices create value.
Journal of Marketing, 73(September), 30 –51.
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Vargo, S.L., & Lusch, R.F. (2004). Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. Journal of
Marketing, 68(1), 1 – 17.

Simon J. Pervan
Southern Cross University
simon.pervan@scu.edu.au

Liliana L. Bove
University of Melbourne
lbove@unimelb.edu.au

June 2011