In pursuit of stronger bonds: The impact of experience and attachment on customer engagement

Abstract

While engagement literature deepens with particular engagement conceptualizations, engagement that occur in spatial environments and service settings remain largely under-researched although consumers develop interactive and co-creative relationships with places, which subsequently create, shape, and change their consumption behaviors in various ways. Broadening the customer engagement to include places as focal engagement objects offers promising potential to the advancement of our understanding of customer relationships in service settings. In this study, we develop the concept of place engagement that synthesizes customer engagement and experience concepts in marketing with place attachment theory. Place engagement, i.e., customers’ interactive, co-creative, and bi-directional relationships with places, explores how a human–place bond occurs beyond a uni-directional attachment which is induced by experiences. We empirically test experiences, attachment, and engagement interaction in a 790 respondent sample through structural equation modelling and find out that place attachment and experiences in places are central to creating place engagement. We further find that engagement drives consumer behaviors of word-of-mouth, electronic word-of-mouth, future visit, and tipping intentions. Optimum stimulation level and adoptive consumer innovativeness moderate these relationships.