Customer engagement's strategic motivations, expected and unexpected consequences

Abstract

The importance of undertaking further research into customer engagement has been widely recognised by scholars and practitioners alike, as reflected by the Marketing Science Institute’s identification of customer/consumer engagement (CE) as a key area for further research (MSI, 2014). Specifically, under their Tier 1 Research Priority of ‘Understanding Customers and Customer Experience,’ the MSI states (MSI, 2014, p. 4): ‘How should engagement be conceptualised, defined and measured? [And] how do social media and other marketing activities create engagement?’ The extant literature has gone some way to addressing these issues.Specifically, research into the ‘CE’ concept has developed rapidly in the academic marketing literature in the last five to seven years (e.g. Bowden, 2009; Brodie, Hollebeek, Ilic, & Juric, 2011; Van Doorn et al., 2010).