International Journal of Service Industry Management

Online community: enhancing the relationship marketing concept through customer

bonding
Isabelle Szmigin Louise Canning Alexander E. Reppel
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Isabelle Szmigin Louise Canning Alexander E. Reppel, (2005),"Online community: enhancing the
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IJSIM
16,5
480
Received 6 September 2004
Revised 18 April 2005
Accepted 25 April 2005
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International Journal of Service
Industry Management
Vol. 16 No. 5, 2005
pp. 480-496
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0956-4233
DOI 10.1108/09564230510625778
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0956-4233.htm
Online community: enhancing the
relationship marketing concept
through customer bonding
Isabelle Szmigin, Louise Canning and Alexander E. Reppel
The University of Birmingham, University House, Birmingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – To revisit relationship marketing in the context of the digital economy.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper develops a conceptual framework (the customer
bonding triangle) that enables greater understanding of the contributions of service delivery and
online communities in the development of bonds in interactive relationships. The function of the three
key elements of the framework (namely service value, technical infrastructure and interactivity) in
enabling bonding via internet communities, is developed.
Findings – Suggests that firms rethink the role and nature of the consumer and that in order to
facilitate bonding firms must make use of systems that are tightly integrated yet can also incorporate
flexibility to help develop better understanding amongst participants.
Originality/value – Provides a framework to help understand key elements in interactive relationships.
Keywords Relationship marketing, Online operations, Services
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Most of the western world now lives and works in what is described as a network
society (Castells, 2000). A major impact of the integration of electronic interaction into
society has been that the range of individuals’ social and economic exchanges takes
place in more flexible and fluid ways (Howard, 2003). The network society has offered
a major opportunity to organisations to develop this expanding communications
landscape particularly in terms of their relationships with customers. Gummeson
(2002) points out that while the focus of both relationship marketing and CRM has been
on the individual, relationships are also with groups of like-minded people which form
communities. It is these communities and the nature of their relationships with
organisations that this paper seeks to conceptualise. We present a framework for
understanding and explaining the nature of interaction within internet communities.
In particular, we propose that such communities enhance relationship marketing
primarily in two ways. First, they provide the opportunity for interactivity and the
building of a consumer relevant community. Secondly, by assessing the nature of such
communities, organisers can meet the needs of the community participants better.
In order to service these communities well online organisers have to consider carefully
the most suitable form their community should take and support this through an
appropriate framework. We make an initial conceptualisation of what the important
elements of such a framework are likely to include and refer to this as the customer
bonding triangle. The customer bonding triangle model aims to capture the complexity
and interactivity of internet community participation and builds upon existing
 understanding of relationship marketing. The benefit of this model, we propose, is Relationship
contained in its three key elements of service value, technical infrastructure and marketing
interactivity. These reflect the needs of community participants, the importance of
strong and reliable systems and the fact that participants in communities interact with
one another and not just the service provider.

The nature of relationship marketing 481

Many markets consist of long-term relationships between suppliers and customers
(Dwyer et al., 1987; Webster, 1992). The fact that such relationships consist of repeated
exchange means that the behaviour of parties towards each other at a particular point
in time is informed by previous, and will also influence, future actions. Relationships
can be described as being interactive, where either party has the capacity to affect, and
the propensity to be affected by, the actions of the other i.e. within the context of the
relationship, neither party acts entirely independently of the other (Gummesson, 1987;
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Håkansson, 1982). It is acknowledged that as a result of the interactive and repetitive

nature of exchange in such relationships, bonds between parties develop (McCall, 1970;
Turner, 1970). Given that, to varying degrees, relational exchange requires the
involvement of human beings (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), then the social bonds that
develop between parties can be an important feature of a relationship. Relational
exchanges include those with suppliers, lateral organizations, customers, employees
and business units and mean that companies have to learn to co-operate as well as
compete (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). The range and nature of relationships within
industrial, services and consumer markets and between suppliers, intermediary parties
and specific brands makes identifying a definition which accommodates all forms of
relational exchange problematic. In this paper, we accept the definition suggested by
Morgan and Hunt (1994, p. 22) as appropriate for encompassing the range of
possibilities within the relationship context. They propose that “relationship
marketing refers to all marketing activities directed toward establishing, developing
and maintaining successful relational exchanges”.
The existence and desirability of relationships is accepted amongst marketing
academics and practitioners alike. In spite of this broad acceptance, the validity of
academic concepts and management tools associated with relationship marketing has
been called into question (Fitchett and McDonagh, 2000; Fournier et al., 1998). This is
particularly the case where consumers purchase products (yet have no means to
interact with the supplier of that product) and where information technology has
replaced the human-to-human interaction that was a key feature of many service
operations. Information technology might be viewed negatively by customers in terms
of the automation and dehumanisation of service provider-customer interfaces (Varey,
2002). However, depending on how it is used, it should support supplier-customer
exchange and enable the development of online communities. Such communities can in
fact facilitate interaction and bonding and it is this concept of community that
underpins the development of our ideas in this conceptual paper.
A central theme of relationship marketing has been communication with customers
(Morgan and Hunt, 1994) and the involvement of customers in a dialogue is clearly
advantageous for establishing strong market relationships (Andersen, 2005; Varey,
2002) and in many ways the internet has made such communication easier.
The development of communities and in particular brand communities has helped to
 IJSIM humanise the technology of the internet. Such communities are organised and
16,5 managed to provide information, allow dialogue and mediate communication exchange
amongst contributors but are most likely managed by the supplier or another actor in
the supply chain. The interactive nature of such communities should mean that some
of the inherent weaknesses in trying to build relationships in consumer markets can be
addressed, particularly those where an ability to interact with the supplier has been
482 limited.

Relationship marketing and social bonding

Relationships between suppliers and customers have been a feature of markets for as
long as parties (organisations or individuals) have traded their own resources in return
for others. As soon as an exchange occurs, it can be argued that a relationship exists,
although the nature of these and the behaviour of parties within them will vary (Blois,
1998). Some will be characterised by market-based, price-driven exchange in which
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there is no special treatment of the supplier or customer and the exchange is discrete,
with no promise of future business between parties. By way of contrast, suppliers and
customers might choose to satisfy their requirements with known partners on a
repeated basis, entering into a form of exchange where there is mutual recognition of
the special status of the exchange partner (Czepiel, 1990). Clearly each party will act to
satisfy its own needs but the fact that the partner is afforded special status means that
the interests of that partner are also recognised and allowed to shape the conditions for
and execution of exchanges. In such instances, relationships can be described as being
interactive, in that either party has the capacity to affect, and the propensity to be
affected by, the actions of the other.
The special status given some partners and the conditioning of behaviour via
mutual exchange and need fulfilment are acknowledged to be key features of many
business and consumer markets (Ganesan, 1994; Gronroos, 1990) and also represent
cornerstones of relationship marketing (Gummesson, 2002). The understanding and
satisfaction of customer needs are obviously central to the marketing activities of any
organisation, yet the bargaining and exercising of power that might typically be seen
in interaction between parties and which will influence mutual exchange and need
fulfilment in relationships is not universal. Many consumer markets consist of large
numbers of low-involved customers, where mutuality and special status associated
with relationship marketing are difficult to operationalise and exchanges feature
consumers who are treated as passive participants in a process controlled and driven
by the marketing organisation (O’Malley and Tynan, 2000).
Given that relationship marketing assumes that mutual exchange and need
fulfilment take place within the context of relationships that exist over a period of time,
then the drivers and mechanisms that lead to this process require consideration.
Repeated exchange with a known and capable partner allows the supplier or customer
to reduce the perceived risk (and the associated costs) of a purchase or supply situation.
Clearly such behaviour is evident in the actions and decisions of individual consumers.
For example, Berry (1983) and Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995a) have argued that
consumers are motivated to reduce their available choices and repeatedly use certain
suppliers (i.e. adopt a relationship with those suppliers) because this eases buying and
consuming tasks, simplifies information processing and reduces perceived risks.
However, this apparent desire to minimise effort and risk does not guarantee repeated
 exchange when consumers are faced with choices. The evidence, both academic and Relationship
anecdotal, points to consumers rarely being even serially monogamous, but preferring marketing
polygamy in consumption choices as the more natural type of relationship (Peterson,
1995). The work of Ehrenberg and others (Ehrenberg, 1988; Ehrenberg and Scriven,
1996; Ehrenberg and Uncles, 1996) shows that typically consumers have a repertoire of
brands from which they regularly choose, and what is more, they will switch to new
brands just for the variety, or a special offer or indeed for no discernible reason at all. 483
Long-term relationships can only be partially explained by the desire to minimise
risks and costs associated with purchase and supply situations. Consideration must
also be given to relationship bonds. Where repeated exchanges lead to positive
judgements concerning the behaviour of the other party and on the value (cost vs
benefit) of continuing with the relationship, then economic and social bonds (McCall,
1970; Turner, 1970) develop between parties. Our interest centres specifically on social
bonds because in instances where interpersonal communication is a key feature of
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exchange between suppliers and customers, then social bonds can go some way to
explaining long term relationships in business and consumer markets alike (Sheth and
Parvatiyar, 1995b). Repeated episodes of interpersonal communication represent a
process in which individuals act and react to one another, where common assumptions
and shared understanding develop via dialogue between individuals (Varey, 2002).
Affective judgements of and satisfaction with the content and outcome of the dialogue
and with the behaviour and experience of dealing with an exchange partner result in
the development of social bonds, in the development of some degree of emotional
attachment or of mutual liking between individuals (McCall, 1970)
The combination of repeat purchase behaviour and social bonding has been used to
explain loyalty to a particular supplier (Jarvis and Wilcox, 1977) and emotional values
have been attributed to explanations of brand selection decisions (de Chernatony, 1993;
de Chernatony and McDonald, 1992). It may be accepted that one of the principles of
relationship marketing is the idea that relationships are interactive, where exchanges
feature dialogue and two-way communication processes resulting in social bonds, and
that such bonds can lead to loyalty in the face of multiple sources of alternative supply.
There are, however, strong doubts regarding the extent to which companies can and do
facilitate such bonding with consumers (O’Malley and Tynan, 2000). Consumers may
become emotionally attached to a brand, but they do not enter into a dialogue with it,
nor do many experience communication that results in shared understanding and
meaning-making with the suppliers of those brands. Companies may use information
technology to operate customer relationship marketing programmes designed to
encourage repeat purchase, yet if the customer is simply a recipient of a targeted
“communication” campaign and has little opportunity to engage in dialogue with the
supplier, then are such programmes really designed to encourage relationships
between suppliers and customers (O’Malley and Tynan, 2000; Varey, 2002)? For many
companies the internet provides a means for the remote “delivery” of products and
information to consumers. As well as acting as a “delivery” mechanism for an
organisation, the way in which this technology is used will impact on a consumer’s
experience and affective judgement of a product, brand or company. In fact, depending
on how it is designed, the internet offers opportunities for the enabling of dialogue,
shared understanding and meaning-making (and the social bonding that can result
from this) between those who are party to online exchanges. Not only that, the internet
 IJSIM can facilitate interaction between multiple parties in particular (Prahalad and
16,5 Ramaswamy, 2000).

Community and relationship marketing

We have argued that in many exchanges involving consumers, social bonding is
lacking and without bonding, it is difficult for companies to build relationships among
484 its customers. We have also argued that depending on how it is designed, the internet
can actually enable dialogue and bonding between those who participate in online
communication: this could be consumers communicating with the supplier or with
other consumers. So the internet can provide companies with the means to facilitate
bonding not simply with individual consumers, but with multiple participants. This in
turn may allow these various participants to benefit from an internet dialogue which is
based upon community. Irrespective of whether this community already exists or is
devised and cultivated by the organisation, if a meaningful relationship is developed
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the company should benefit and the consumer should gain value. The next section
considers in more detail the meaning and evolution of the concept of community and its
application to relationship marketing.
The concept of community has a long intellectual history in social theory (Dewey,
1927; Maffesoli, 1996; Simmel, 1964). It has, however, been relatively little used in the
consumer behaviour literature (Cova, 1997; McGrath et al., 1993; Schouten and
McAlexander, 1995). Rothaermela and Sugiyama (2001) describe communities as
involving the regular sharing of a particular interest among people. The idea of
communities built specifically around brands has been explored by Muniz and
O’Guinn (2001). Here the communities represent a form of association situated within
a consumption context positioned around one good or service. For the development
of marketing conceptualisation, consumer communities contribute to the thinking
behind relationship marketing by ensuring the consumer is involved and can obtain
meaning from the conversation that takes place within the community. No longer
does the consumer need to wait for the representations of the supplier, they have
agency in their own right. The idea of conversation is particularly important to this
enabling aspect of community and is something that a marketer might wish to
encourage in order to develop bonds between participants. As well as seeking the
benefits from facilitating consumer communities, a supplier must also recognise the
risks involved in a mechanism which it can not entirely control. As Levine et al.
(2000) showed, one does not need to be a fan of a brand to take part in community
dialogue. Their report describes how a consumer query about the cost of servicing a
Saturn car triggered the development of a newsgroup discussion in which
distributors, owners, Saturn employees and even boycotters could all take part and
add value to the conversation. Negative dialogue is not something that a marketer
should seek to suppress, rather having access to it can be a valuable information
source for the organisation. So communities, and especially internet communities
allow and encourage conversations to happen that can be of value to the various
parties involved in that community (buyers, suppliers and other interested parties),
such that some form of community bonding takes place. The technology has enabled
people to be innovative and choose to do things their way rather than relying on
businesses to initiate conversation (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2000). As
communities can exist beyond boundaries of location and time they offer
 far-ranging promise both for marketers to talk to consumers and for consumers to Relationship
talk to one another. Hence we should be considering both the potential power such marketing
communities might have and what constructive role marketing might take in their
setting up and maintenance for mutual advantage.
Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) identified three core components of community as being:
(1) Consciousness of kind: an intrinsic connection that members feel toward one
another and difference from others not in the community. 485
(2) The presence of shared rituals and traditions which perpetuate the community’s
history, culture and consciousness.
(3) A sense of moral responsibility, duty or obligation to the community as a
whole and its individual members.

Such core components suggest an involvement of all parties and a responsibility for the
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development of the community for the “best” outcome. As such this concept of
community is potentially an appropriate development in marketing’s thinking with
regard to the nature of interactions between and across suppliers and consumers. In
particular, we should consider how and why such communities form bonds which have
value to all the participants. We suggest that for the three elements described above to
work together to produce a community, there has to be a sense of bonding among
participants. Bonding will develop over time to create a sense of community.
Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) explored brand communities in which some association
existed amongst participants and was underpinned by the consumption of a particular
product. Their work centred on the study of commercial collectives related to particular
brands and this has been further developed by McAlexander et al. (2002) in their work
with Harley Davidson clubs and Jeep communities. This commercial notion of
community is both interesting and potentially counters some of the problems that we
have previously noted in trying to build relationships in consumer markets that are
interactive and where continued exchange can be explained by more than purchase
simplification. In fact, we argue that consumer communities contribute to relationship
marketing by ensuring the consumer is part of the conversation with the view that
dialogue can facilitate social bonding.
The rate, pace of change and usage of technology in the twenty-first century is such
that communication in society is no longer constrained geographically: the internet,
television, phone and particularly the mobile phone have changed the way businesses
communicate with consumers. Importantly, technology has also heralded a significant
change in the way individuals, whether as consumers or just people, talk to one
another. At first sight one might expect customer polygamy to be the most obvious
feature of the internet economy, nevertheless some researchers argue that what has
been termed “E-loyalty” will indeed be the secret weapon on the web (Reichheld and
Schefter, 2000). The opportunity to switch vendors is clearly helped by the web;
information abounds, and the balance of power currently seems well weighted on the
buyer’s side. This does not mean consumer loyalty (as indicated by repeat purchase
and social bonding) cannot be developed. Rather, those companies that understand
how the internet can enable dialogue and the development of online communities will
acquire greater insight into the nature and appropriateness of customer loyalty in
consumer markets.
 IJSIM The nature of online communities
16,5 Research on online brand communities is still relatively limited (Andersen, 2005;
Fischer et al., 1996; Kozinets, 1999; Rothaermela and Sugiyama, 2001) despite their
increasing presence on the web. The concept of the online community developed early
in the history of the internet (Armstrong and Hagel, 1996; Hagel and Armstrong, 1997;
Rheingold, 2000). Both the social aspects and economic potential of such communities
486 has been explored. Armstrong and Hagel (1996) identified four types of consumer
needs which electronic communities could meet:
.
Communities of transaction facilitate the buying and selling process and deliver
information related to this process.
.
Communities of interest involve a higher degree of interpersonal communication
as participants interact intensively with each other on specific topics. Users tend
to generate plenty of content themselves which can be used by the community
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organiser to attract new participants.

.
Communities of fantasy allow participants to create new stories, personalities or
whole new environments.
.
Communities of relationship give participants the opportunity to share certain
life experiences.

The consumption focus of online communities was further developed by Figallo (1998)
who identified three types of group behaviour within an electronic community. These
are:
(1) Interactivity: shrine, theatre and café interactivity.
(2) Focus: bazaar, mall and speciality focus.
(3) Cohesion: loners, associates and family.

According to Figallo (1998) the ideal online community incorporates café interactivity,
speciality focus and family cohesion. Café interactivity is where the form is often more
important than the message. People interact because they want to enjoy the ebb and
flow of conversation on the net. Speciality focus among participants is where specific
subjects draw the community together making it easier for people to exchange
information. For example in the United Kingdom, culinary enthusiasts and those
involved in the catering industry can make use of discussion forums found in the web
site of celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, to share ideas, opinions and converse about food
related issues. Family cohesion is the glue that keeps the community together and is
both emotional and subjective. A good community organiser can make participants
feel that they are part of a family although clearly the nature of such online
communities is likely to be very different.
Using the typologies developed above, it is clear that while vendors can still use
online communities for their own purposes, they ideally need to develop the
appropriate relationships to ensure they achieve their objectives. Initial distinctions in
the form of relationships can be made depending on whether they are developed
primarily for dialogue and conversation or for imparting information and whether
profit maximisation is a key objective. These distinctions lead us to present four
possibilities for the organisation of an online community (Figure 1).
 Relationship
marketing

487
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Figure 1.
Four possibilities of
organising an online
community

A help group community is typically one of shared interest and expertise such as an
expert message board, a local community or some other special interest group which
shares ideas, problems and members help one another answer questions, and where the
community is content focused. The group is not profit focused but dialogue is essential
for it to run. For example, www.breastcancer.org is typical of many help groups that
offer support and community to those touched by potentially life-threatening illnesses
via, amongst other things, its open discussion forums and chat forums. A fan club is
often run by a commercial organisation but profit maximization is not the purpose of
the community. Fan clubs, typically associated with interests and past-times, offer a
wide range of information and interactive games as well as chat facilities, for example
those linked to soccer clubs, musical celebrities such as Andrea Bocelli and Robbie
Williams as well as toy manufacturers such as Barbie and Lego. The value exchange
sites are highly customer focused but allow extensive consumer interaction and
dialogue. Many brand specific sites are of this nature; the Microsoft community web
site hosts a range of user groups and includes professional users in product testing and
chat facilities (Andersen, 2005). But value exchange communities are not necessarily
run by the brand owner; sites such as those run around the world for Macintosh users,
while maintaining links to Macintosh and selling their products, are initiated by a
range of different users. Another type of exchange site is that run by the BBC in Britain
where the information content is augmented by a vast array of discussion groups and
message boards built around individual programmes. Finally the Defence
Organisation is typical of many company web sites that provide information but
very little opportunity for interaction. They may well include FAQ sites and offer an
opportunity to contact the organisation but their raison d’être is not to encourage
interaction but to provide information and a presence on the web.
 IJSIM In choosing the shape of the community the service provider needs to be aware of
16,5 the possible impact of such early decisions; the choice as to the type of community to
create is a critical decision as it is instrumental in shaping the result in terms of the
nature of exchange between participants, the kind of community, the type of people,
and their motives for joining. The success or failure of the enterprise may well be
dependent on this initial choice and whether it can sustain the community for which it
488 is intended. For example, the profit maximisation organisation may try to dominate an
online community in order to fulfil their short-term goals. An example which illustrates
the nature of different providers is offered by de Chernatony (2001) who distinguished
between the sites of Lastminute.com and Nextweekend.com. Lastminute.com, is a
highly controlled site, making available what it has managed to source and using price
as a key feature for controlling and managing custom. By contrast Nextweekend.com
was a loosely controlled site which asked people what they wanted to do in the
forthcoming weekend, and gleaned ideas from others prepared to share their thoughts
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on site. While a tightly controlled vendor focused site may be appropriate for some
types of transaction, it is unlikely to create a community and customers will quickly
categorise the nature of the site they are dealing with (Evans and Wurster, 1997; Hagel
and Singer, 1999). The vendor focused Defence Organisation continues to assume
consumers are passive recipients of benefits rather than active co-producers. The more
customer-focused forms of online community, however, have real opportunities for
long-term profit maximisation. If other service providers are allowed to participate
directly with community members, the main organiser also increases the potential of
aggregating new customers and bonding with existing ones. Such communities should
enable all participants to offer and derive benefits from them but this does of course
require active and reciprocal involvement in those communities.
We propose that the development of a general framework could enable companies to
understand better some of the key aspects that define and drive loyalty in internet
communities. The conceptual framework we present here has been developed from
direct experience of working with online communities. We aim to explore here how a
service provider (i.e. the main community organiser) can create what will be referred to
as customer bonding among its customers in a networked environment and help to
create a community that is beneficial to all involved. Critical to this conceptualisation is
the fact that the nature of online communities offers the potential to foster not only
business to consumer interaction, but also consumer to business interaction (which can
help strengthen the bond between customers and service providers) and consumer to
consumer interaction, thus developing real “conversations” among all the stakeholders
within the community.

The anatomy of customer bonding

To explore the nature of bonding within the online community we have developed a
framework built around three key elements: interactivity, technical infrastructure and
service value (Figure 2).
The framework positions service value as a necessity which can be enhanced by the
bonding concept of interactivity between participants and is enabled by an appropriate
technical infrastructure. These three key elements are further broken down into more
detailed constituent parts. First, we shall examine the elements of this triangle in detail
 Relationship
marketing

489
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Figure 2.
The customer bonding
triangle framework

and then explain their relationship to the overall concept of customer bonding in the
online community.
The community is represented by purposeful flows and exchanges between
customers, organisers and others interested or involved in the community.
Interactivity is seen as a high involvement process (Schleuning, 1997) and
interaction among people whether it is the organisation to the customer, customer to
organisation or customer-to-customer is the main feature of the interactivity triangle.
Interactivity has been described as “any action that responds dynamically to user
control” by Bonime and Pohlmann (1997, p. 16) and we would argue that to put
customers in control, every element of a service should be interactive. In terms of
communication, on-going interaction is necessary in which the individual is addressed,
their response is received and used and responsibility is taken for managing this
process (Deighton and Sorrell, 1996). That people are involved and interacting with one
another, should lead to greater interest than just receiving information (Peppers and
Rogers, 1997). The framework suggests that successful customer bonding will depend
on interaction by involved customers supported by the use of appropriate technology.
When the interaction can be started by the customer as well as the provider the
customer takes on a co-producer role. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) point out that
while customisation assumes the manufacturer produces a product designed to suit a
customer’s needs, personalisation allows the customer to become a co-creator of their
experience, thereby increasing the customer’s involvement and the bond with the
community. There are potentially many facets to the co-producer role which can
include specification of the service, pure co-production i.e. where a client does some of
the work which would have been done by the organisation such as quality control
 IJSIM and maintenance of ethos (Norman, 1998). Cross and Smith (1995) suggest that a
16,5 provider’s readiness for interaction can move a customer to a co-producer and hence to
a higher level of customer bonding.
What we have termed the technical infrastructure triangle defines the next set of
relationships. Allee (2000) has pointed out that while new technologies can provide
the mechanism for value exchange, it is the exchange itself that holds the value.
490 Without appropriate technology, however, the exchange may never happen or be
effective (Bitner et al., 2000). It is the technology which enables interaction and
therefore is a core feature of the customer bonding triangle. This relates to the most
basic issues such as remembering that in online communities the users’ time is
valuable. The technical infrastructure triangle in Figure 2 has speed and reliability
at its core as without it a service cannot be delivered in a consistent and appropriate
way and therefore cannot provide value. Only the degree of dependency from the
technical infrastructure might vary. To be of any consequence, technical
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infrastructure has to be used by staff and/or customers and the inter-networked

infrastructure of the internet enables customers more than ever before to help
themselves (Seybold and Marshak, 1998; Sterne, 2000). But in turn this puts more
emphasis on service accessibility and ease of use. While speed and reliability focuses
on the design of the technology, accessibility focuses on the design of the user
interface. Both aspects are important in the design of the technical infrastructure of a
service. The more sophisticated the technology is, the more possibilities it offers and
with the internet one particular aspect of this is the possibility of increased
customisation of the service offering (Peppers and Rogers, 1997; Pine and Gilmore,
1999). History shows that the drive for efficiency and in particular cost reduction,
leads to organisations providing the same service to as many customers as possible
i.e. mass production (Pine and Gilmore, 1999). The trade off has been a decline in
effectiveness as the individually perceived value of the service offering varies among
customers. Improved technology allows the best of both worlds; efficiency and
effectiveness becomes possible by treating many customers as individuals at the
same time. By providing interactive technology, the technical infrastructure enables
mass-customisation of products and services. The technical infrastructure can
supply the capabilities to ensure that customers can become co-creators (Prahalad
and Ramaswamy, 2000).
The final part of the framework, the service value triangle is linked to the other
elements of the proposed framework by accessibility and the responsibility for
interaction. The core of the service value triangle is a service’s potential for delivering
solutions (Schwarz, 1999). A service has to be accessible to the customer, otherwise the
potential to deliver a solution is lost. The service provider also has responsibility for
his customers’ interaction related to the service offering. If the importance of this is not
fully understood, the service is unlikely to deliver value in practice. This interaction
requires the service provider to communicate with the customer to identify what his
needs are which obviously includes a degree of subjectivity and therefore there is room
for complexity and misrepresentation. The potential for delivering solutions is related
to customer satisfaction. Here the dominant conceptual model in measuring customer
satisfaction is the disconfirmation of expectations model (Kristensen et al., 1999, p. 602)
where “customer satisfaction is an evaluative response of the product purchase and
consumption experience resulting from a comparison of what was expected and what is
 received”. Again we are faced with the inevitable subjectivity of expected and received Relationship
values in terms of how they vary from customer to customer and therefore marketing
measurement is difficult.
The core aspect of this triangular relationship is the potential for delivering
solutions. As already mentioned it is inevitably open to individual interpretation as
customers judge a service’s potential for delivering a solution differently. A key
component to the assessment of the potential for delivering solutions will be dependent 491
on the perceived value of the service as interpreted by the consumer.

Managerial implications of the customer bonding triangle

By cultivating online communities on organisation has the means to:
.
define and develop alternative relationship strategies through the use of online
facilities;
Downloaded by New York University At 23:37 27 April 2015 (PT)

.
develop or enhance existing relationships;
.
engage customers in a dialogue-oriented communication strategy (Andersen,
2005) which is of value to those customers; and
.
increase the reach and the richness of the dialogue simultaneously. This includes
dialogue between the customer and the brand, and the firm, as well as with other
customers and with the product in use.

To do this on organisation has to rethink the role of its customers such that they are
willing to participate in co-production because they perceive some benefit or value in
contributing in this way. In addition to this, they have to have the means by which
they can create their brand/service experience in conjunction with the organisation
and other participants of the online community. This is where the customer bonding
triangle comes into its own. The power encapsulated in the triangle is derived from
the interrelationship of service value with technical infrastructure and interactivity
between participants. Using the triangle to facilitate customer bonding means that
an organisation must ensure there is a tight fit within each element of the triangle
and close integration between the elements. For example, in order to receive a
solution:
.
a customer has to be able to access and interact with the service provider and
these have to fit together for any service value to be transmitted;
.
the technical infrastructure has to be reliable and accessible and needs to deliver
some kind of interactivity to enable community bonding; and
.
the design of the technical infrastructure has to be correct, otherwise a service
simply cannot deliver value and without interaction it is impossible for a service
provider to reach its targeted customer group effectively.

So fit between the three elements of content, communication and structure is the
foundation upon which such community bonding can be built. Not only is fit
important, but speed and flexibility are too. In a fast moving environment, it is clearly
an advantage to adjust quickly and early but most important is combining speed with
appropriateness. In particular, the ability to incorporate flexibility into the system is
likely to help develop a better community understanding.
 IJSIM Conclusions and recommendations for further research
16,5 The customer bonding triangle that we have described in this paper is one way of
conceptualising the nature of, and requirements for online communities. Online
communities will be useful sources of information and interaction for customers, users
and the online organisers alike. The major opportunity is to create, run and develop
communities in an appropriate and useful way for the mutual benefit of participants.
492 Understanding the technical, interactive and service requirements as a whole should,
not only help develop the appropriate functional frameworks but also produce better
communities with more involved participants. Empirical work should be used for a
variety of purposes. First of all, the importance of elements included in the triangle
need to be determined. An initial study should establish the relative merits of the
design features made available to members of an online community. See Table I for an
indication of areas that could be covered in such a study.
Research would also need to monitor the development of and interaction within
Downloaded by New York University At 23:37 27 April 2015 (PT)

communities to determine whether online versions do in fact operate in the way that we
understand communities to function. Such monitoring should ideally start at the point
when an online facility is made available, using a longitudinal study in order to
observe the dynamics of selected communities. Development of the community could
be monitored by tracking:

Potential for delivering solutions
Fostering of interaction
Speed and reliability
Accessibility (ease of use)
Table I. Responsibility for interaction
Determining user relative Personalisation
importance of online
community design
features
Links between the service provider and other
information sources relevant to community
participants
Inclusion of material from other organisations into
the host’s own service provision
Facility for online purchasing of products featured
on the host’s site
Restriction of the amount of information available on
the homepage to speed up loading
Short information items available on start pages
(complete information provided in sub-pages) to
speed up loading
Provision of web-based e-mail account with the
host’s address
Participation of host organisation’s employees in
chat rooms
Facility for users to comment on material provided
by the host on its webpage
Anonymity of participants when posting comments
Restriction of the amount of information available on
the homepage to speed up loading
Short information items available on start pages
(complete information provided in sub-pages) to
speed up loading
Facility to customise appearance of host’s site
Deletion of offensive comments by the host
Customisation of content to suit user’s preferences
Facility to customise appearance of host’s site
Facility to customise amount of information
presented on start page
 .
the entry (and equally the departure) of members; Relationship
.
the structure of the community in terms of the range of stakeholder groups and marketing
volume of participants from those various groups; and
.
the solutions sought via and provided by the online community.

As far as interaction within the communities is concerned, exchanges between

members should be scrutinised in terms of: 493
. content;
.
the range of stakeholder groups and individual members that initiate exchanges,
or are targets of and respond to exchanges triggered by others; and
.
the level of activity that various issues can generate amongst participants.

If, as we have argued, online communities can provide the means by which social
Downloaded by New York University At 23:37 27 April 2015 (PT)

bonding at the level of the individual consumer can occur, then this has to be explored.
To do this, a consumer’s motivation for, experience of and perceived value from
participating in an online community has to be understood. Again, investigations that
are longitudinal in nature and use qualitative data collection methods such as
interviews, or perhaps make use of diaries kept by participants could help to determine
the creation, development and extent of social bonding via online communities. Clearly
the importance of such bonding has to be weighed against other benefits that a
consumer might derive from participation in an online community.
This paper has a presented a way in which the ideas underpinning relationship
marketing can be advanced by the involvement of consumers in different types of
online communities. There is little doubt that many online offerings will continue to
reflect existing business mindsets, which have simply been transferred to a different
medium. Whether or not this approach will succeed in the longer term is open to
question. There are, however, increasing and real opportunities for online organisers to
help in the development of communities with the potential for benefits for all
stakeholders. These communities will develop networks of associations, contacts and
conversations. This is how our understanding and use of relationship marketing can
move forward and in so doing, provide a more favourable and equitable power balance.

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(Isabelle Szmigin is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the Birmingham Business School,

University of Birmingham, from where she gained her PhD (Commerce). She previously held a
similar post at the City University Business School in London. She has worked in advertising and
marketing in the communications, chemical and financial services industries. Her research
interests include the consumer behaviour, consumer innovativeness, services and relationship
marketing.
Louise Canning is a Lecturer in Marketing at the Birmingham Business School, University of
Birmingham. Prior to gaining her PhD from UWE Bristol she held various international sales
and marketing posts in the steel and engineering industries. Her research centres on inter-firm
relationships and currently includes adaptation, technology and sustainability.
Alexander E. Reppel is a Doctoral Candidate at The Birmingham Business School, The
University of Birmingham. Previously, he held a senior management position at a European
e-commerce company. His interests are in the area of relationship marketing and consumer data
management practices.)
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