Value Evaluation of Customer Experience Using Consumer Generated Content

Abstract

The value literature has emerged from the fundamental notion of a trade-off between costs and benefits. This evolution supports the current understanding that value resides in experience from consumption. However, less is known about how customer experiences derived from their consumption can be translated into customer value components. This study delineates the models used in understanding the experience realm and customer value to provide insights on customers’ experience based vale. Consumer generated content in the form of blogs are used for analysis. These blogs provide textual artifacts of consumption experience. Using netnography as the main methodological tool, our results suggest two main findings. The first is related to the variation in value dimensions according to the realm of experience which supports the notion of value being idiosyncratic with different customers viewing the same experience differently. The second finding is related to the technical aspect of the study which suggests that consumer generated content or blogs can be used to examine the ‘what of consumption.’ However, it cannot be used to explain the ‘why of consumption.’ This suggests its potential as a preliminary research tool to complement other research methods.