Customer-dominant service logic

Abstract

Different theoretical perspectives in service research emphasize distinct aspects, and thereby create different views; this chapter discusses implications of adopting a customer-dominant perspective of service business. Thus, it describes customer-dominant logic, stressing the customer’s primary role and the difference between customer and provider logics. This perspective results in different theoretical and practical implications than those derived from other service perspectives. Customer logic is a central concept, as customer-dominant business logic as a management approach is based on understanding customers’ logics. Customer logic holistically captures the mental model and sensemaking behind customers’ choices and activities. It is a coordinating concept in which the patterns of customers’ overt and covert activities, experiences, and goals are integrated. Service business is here used in a generic sense to include any type of service provision, commercial or noncommercial, directed toward any type of customer, including single consumers or business customers, as well as groups and collectives. For service research, the message is to recognize the different interpretations of service that arise from changing the focus from provider to customer, and more specifically to scrutinize established concepts and models and innovate new ones to fit the customer’s reality. Service practitioners are advised to gain an understanding of current and evolving customer logics in order to gain and maintain a competitive advantage by being able to support customers in achieving their goals. The chapter also elaborates on related current topics in service research and the contribution of customer-dominant logic to these academic, societal, and business challenges.

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