Customer Participation in the Service Industry: A Theoretical Discussion and its Application

The inseparability of production and consumption means customer should participate in the delivery process when service is performed. Customer participation not only influences the productive efficiency and service quality, but also influences the participant´s satisfaction to the company. This paper tries to integrate the opinions based on companies and customers, and discusses its intrinsic mechanism of customer participation and its application. In general, participant process, participant degree and psychological factors are the primary factors that customer participation impacts on customer´s satisfaction. Nevertheless, increased customer participation does not necessarily result in higher perceived quality and satisfaction or greater repurchase. The design of participant detail plays a key role in the enhancement of customer´s satisfaction. Furthermore, customers with different self-regulatory states are distinguishing in their general satisfied levels with participant courses. As a conclusion, we consider effective management on customer participation must be implemented to avoid its negative influence and exert its active function, such as positive service communication, reasonable design and training of customer participation and attractive customer participation.