Customer Inspiration: Conceptualization, Scale Development and Validation

Marketing

Further details

Introducing new ideas to the customer lies at the heart of marketing, yet surprisingly little is known about customers’ state of inspiration within a marketing context. Based on prior conceptualizations in social psychology, we develop a two-dimensional 10-item customer inspiration scale that consists of an “inspired by” and an “inspired to” component. That scale is useful for measuring a customer’s state of mind when receiving a new or enhanced consumption-related insight that motivates a certain consumption-related behavior. The scale development process starts with an extensive item generation effort, followed by four studies that involve (1) scale purification and initial validation, (2) an exploration of the nomological network, (3) tests for the experimental and predictive validity, and (4) a replication within a field experiment. Empirical results reveal sounds psychometric properties of the scale and demonstrate its unique position within the nomological network of related consumption variables. It can be concluded that customer inspiration is a more useful metric to understand future success of firms than more traditional satisfaction-related measures.