The impact of customer education on customer co-creation behaviours: A multichannel approach

Companies need to support customers in their value co-creation processes and there are calls to marketers to change their key roles from mass communicators to "instructors, coaches and advisors. As a resource integrator (Vargo and Lusch, 2008), customers need to integrate know-how resources acquired from different channels/sources (i.e. marketer and non-marketer) to experience a successful service outcome. The vast majority of prior studies examined the effects of a single education channel (e.g. Dellande et al., 2004; Eisingerich and Bell, 2008). To date, little is known about how multiple education channels interact with one another to facilitate customers' co-creation behaviours. This study examines customer learning from a multi-channel perspective and examines possible interaction effects within the context of a weight-loss service. Findings from 245 users of the WeightWatchers service show that a combination of learning sources (i.e. forum, website, booklets and meetings) helps to increase motivation while the effect of individual channels on motivation and other role readiness variables (i.e. role clarify, motivation and ability) is mixed. The findings support the interrelationships amongst components of role readiness variables and shows that customers' motivation was the strongest driver of customer co-creation behaviours, followed by customer ability.