Customer participation and well-being: the roles of service experience, customer empowerment and social support

Purpose: This research aims to contribute to the transformative service research (TSR) literature by examining how customer participation in the service process influences their service experience and eudaimonic well-being, as moderated by customer empowerment and social support. Design/methodology/approach: In the contexts of wedding (n = 623) and tourism services (n = 520), two surveys were conducted to test the hypotheses using mediation and moderation analyses. Findings: Customer participation had a positive effect on their well-being, as mediated by service experience. These effects were moderated by customer empowerment and social support. Specifically, customer empowerment negatively moderated the relationship between customer participation and their service experience for both services. In addition, the moderating effect of social support on the relationship between customer participation and service experience was positive for the wedding service but negative for the tourism service. Practical implications: The findings imply that firms should encourage customer participation to enhance their service experience and well-being. In addition, the firm could judiciously empower customers by adapting to the level of customer participation. Furthermore, depending on the complexity of the service required to produce the expected service outcomes, the firm may encourage the customers to engage their social network for support. Originality/value: This research uses the service ecosystem perspective to examine the roles of the customer, the firm and the customer's social network in shaping their service experience and well-being for two common and important mental stimulus services, enriching the authors’ understanding on the role mental stimulus services play in enhancing consumers' eudaimonic well-being.