A Hierarchical Model of Virtual Experience and Its Influences on the Perceived Value and Loyalty of Customers

ABSTRACT

Many businesses use virtual experience (VE) to enhance the overall customer experience, though extant research offers little guidance for how to improve consumers’ VE. This study, anchored in activity theory, examines key drivers of VE and its influences on value perceptions and customer loyalty. A hierarchical model indicates that VE comprises second-order variables (i.e., social presence, social capital, flow experience, and situational involvement) and third-order variables (i.e., communal and individual experience). The results obtained from a substantive model further reveal that VE positively influences perceptions of both economic and social value and thus influences loyalty in both the real world and virtual environments.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES:

• Consumer experience
• customer loyalty
• hierarchical model
• perceived customer value
• virtual experience
• virtual world

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bhuminan Piyathasanan

BHUMINAN PIYATHASANAN ([email protected]) is a lecturer at Thammasat Business School (TBS), Bangkok, Thailand. He holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His research interests are in services marketing and interactive marketing.

Christine Mathies

CHRISTINE MATHIES ([email protected]) is a senior lecturer at the School of Marketing, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Her research and teaching focus on services marketing. She is particularly interested in psychological influences on customer choices, revenue management, customer loyalty, and the customer service behaviors of frontline employees.

Martin Wetzels

MARTIN WETZELS ([email protected]) is a professor of marketing and supply chain research, and head of department, in the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. His main research interests are services marketing, marketing research, B2B marketing, marketing channels, and digital marketing. His work has been published in MIS Quarterly, Journal of Marketing, Management Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Business Research, and International Journal of Research in Marketing. He has contributed more than eighty papers to conference proceedings.

Paul G. Patterson

PAUL G. PATTERSON ([email protected]) is a professor in the School of Marketing at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His research, teaching, and consulting interests revolve around marketing issues in service industries. His research has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Retailing, California Management Review, European Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Business Research, among others.

Ko de Ruyter

KO DE RUYTER ([email protected]) is a professor of marketing at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. His research interests focus on social media, customer loyalty, and environmental stewardship. He has published six books and numerous scholarly articles in, among others, Journal of Marketing, Management Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Decision Sciences, Organization Science, Marketing Letters, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Service Research, and Information and Management.