Co-creation convenience: reconceptualizing the customer convenience concept through the service-dominant logic lens

Abstract

Purpose The customer convenience concept, conventionally viewed through a transactional lens as the minimization of time and effort, fails to fully capture the complexities of how customers integrate resources to co-create value. This paper aims to use a service-dominant logic lens to reconceptualize convenience to reflect the evolving nature of customers’ preferences for convenience and active roles in co-creation processes.to use Design/methodology/approach The reconceptualization was based on theoretical deductive and empirical inductive approaches. A survey of the literature was first conducted to clarify how convenience has been defined and to identify its key attributes. Next, a qualitative study was conducted in healthcare contexts to explore the real-world experiences and perceptions of customers, uncovering nuanced attributes of convenience in co-creation that are not reflected in existing definitions. Findings The term co-creation convenience is coined to refer to the customer’s judgment regarding the extent of perceived autonomy in flexibly deploying their pool of resources, specifically in configuring and using them, in achieving their goals associated with a service co-creation. Originality/value The co-creation convenience concept offers a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding that aligns with contemporary service research paradigms. This paper also suggests moving away from a firm-centric view of convenience toward a customer-centric view, focusing on providing platforms, tools and support that facilitate customers’ agency to conveniently integrate a wide range of resources into service co-creation.