Customer-to-Customer Interaction (CCI): a Cross-cultural Perspective

Interactions between service customers are increasingly the focus of service management research. The customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) literature has, however, focused overwhelmingly on same-culture interactions. CCI has seldom been researched in a cross-cultural context. This is a serious deficiency given the increasingly cross-cultural nature of consumption in services such as the hospitality industry. As interactions between customers from different cultures are a potentially significant influence on customer satisfaction, it is important that hospitality industry managers are aware both of the forms these interactions may take and of the possibilities for managing them. This paper: draws attention to the increasing incidence of cross-cultural CCI (CC-CCI); outlines some CCI-related managerial challenges; identifies some pertinent research directions; and proposes methods for conducting such research.