The purpose of the paper is to investigate the nature of linkages between characteristics of a service and customer consequences and elicit the types of such linkages.
The paper builds on current research on linkages and customer consequences within the means‐end approach and on a qualitative case study in the context of website use in business‐to‐business relationships.
The paper introduces six types of linkages between characteristics of a service and customer consequences: common and unique, conflicting and non‐conflicting, and homogenous and heterogeneous linkages.
The paper portrays four cases of implications of the linkages for simplicity and homogeneity of the design of services and of their marketing strategies.
The ways in which characteristics of a service are linked with customer consequences of an engagement with the service are of crucial importance in marketing. Despite the importance, research on linkages is scarce. By considering currently neglected aspects such as different units of analysis, different relationships between characteristics and customer consequences, and diversity in characteristics and consequences, the paper introduces new types of linkages. It also depicts the relevance of the knowledge of the linkages for portraying customer value fully.
