Designing a Customer Message for Compliance in the B2C Sharing Service Context

In the B2C sharing service context, customers have to play the role of traditional service employees. Since a customer’s failure to perform expected duties can lead to a service failure experience for other customers, customers should perform their role responsibly. Without service personnel to interactively inform and instruct customers on their duties, a non-interactive message, such as prints or recorded voice has to be carefully designed for maximum customer compliance. This study proposes two message design factors (source of a message: service firm vs. other customers; value of compliance outcome: individualistic vs. cooperative) and examines their customer compliance effect. Furthermore, the customer’s purpose of using a sharing service (utilitarian vs. hedonic) is proposed and tested as a customer-level moderating factor. To test hypotheses, data collected via a scenario-based online survey was analyzed using ANOVA. Results showed significant main and interaction effects of the two design factors. The interaction effect was moderated by the customer’s purpose of using a sharing service. This study is meaningful as one of the first empirical studies on customer compliance issues in the sharing service context. Findings of this study can help sharing service managers better design messages for higher customer compliance.