From surviving to co-creating: the effects of the reshaped physical and social servicescape on customer citizenship behavior

Abstract

The pandemic has reshaped customer perceptions of the new normal with both the physical and social service environments. Surprisingly, however, how reshaped servicescape design affects customers, especially their value co-creation behaviors, has not been studied. Drawing on value co-creation and signaling theory, this research aims to examine the comprehensive effects of the physical servicescape (signages, partitions, and spatial density) and the social servicescape (other customer misbehavior) on customer citizenship behavior and revisit intention via the mediating roles of perceived competence, perceived ethicality, and other customer trust. This study conducts two between-subjects experimental design studies with both written and pictorial manipulations in restaurant and retail store contexts to increase generalizability for services marketing. Signages and other customer misbehavior promote customer citizenship behavior through perceived competence and ethicality while partition shows the mixed results on customer perceptions. This paper contributes to servicescape and customer citizenship literature by identifying how the servicescape affects customer citizenship behavior via customers' perception. The findings of this current study also offer practical guidance as to how firms can be more strategic in design choices.