Abstract
Customer Engagement, or CE, and Customer Disengagement, or CD, are emerging concepts within marketing literature and have yet to be explored within a local government sector. This study used focus groups to uncover how CE and CD operate within a single service setting- being a local municipality. The results revealed that the operation of CE and CD followed two distinct paths. Whereas CE was driven by the horizontal relationships formed between residents, CD was motivated by the vertical relationship between residents and their council. This finding provides an interesting contribution to CE and CD literature, as the two processes- which have thus far been regarded as separate concepts- are seen to co-exist within the same service setting and within the same customer population. Managerially, this implies that marketing strategies need to be created to target both engagement and disengagement within a given service context.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Australia New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference 2013 |
| Editors | Rod Brodie |
| Place of Publication | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Publisher | The University of Auckland Business School, University of Auckland |
| Pages | 1-8 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780646563305 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |
| Event | Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference (2013) - Auckland, New Zealand Duration: 1 Dec 2013 → 4 Dec 2013 |
Conference
| Conference | Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference (2013) |
|---|---|
| City | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Period | 1/12/13 → 4/12/13 |
Keywords
- Customer Engagement
- Customer Disengagement
- Local Government Sector
- Horizontal and Vertical Customer Relationships