True or False Customer Engagement Behaviour: What Can We Learn from Customers’ Touch Point Histories?

Customers’ engagement behaviours are considered an important source of value to the company. So far, the discussion has mainly been conceptual and focused on the company’s perspective. By adopting the customer’s perspective we investigated how customers perceive their service relationship encounters with a company, using in-depth interviews. We found the following key factors driving and explaining customers’ engagement behaviours: (1) transactions matter and inconsistent engagement behaviours are a reality, (2) mundane products and services are still highly relevant for customers, and (3) different degrees of customer experience alignment with services and products exist. Moreover, the distinction between true and false engagement behaviours we suggest indeed is relevant and we could establish their mediating capabilities.