Customer integration - A key to an implementation perspective of service provision

A paradigm shift in marketing seems to be underway. Inspired by Vargo and Lusch's (2004a) proposal of service dominant logic, customer integration is proposed as a key component of marketing. Three stages of service provision are identified: facilities, transformation, and usage. The stages differ in terms of resource origin (company or customer), autonomy of decision-making (integrative or autonomous), and value (potential value, value-in-transformation, and value-in-use). These perspectives, which are synthesized in the study framework, shed light on the process of service provision and direct or indirect knowledge application (Vargo and Lusch 2004a). The author aims to show that in the context of the proposed framework, customer integration is vital to the implementation of service provision.