Abstract
Customer education plays an important role in service marketing, especially in the B2B marketing context. However, whether customer education can facilitate customer’s recommendation intention remains unclear. This research investigated the relationship between customer education and customer recommendation intention via customer perceived value, and built a dual-path mediation model and empirically tested the model. The thesis proposed that product-related knowledge and skill and relationship strength played mediating role in the relationship between customer education and customer perceived value, which in turn influence customer recommendation intention. Based on survey data of 320 customers from an In vitro diagnostics medical company in China, this research found that customer education has a positive impact on customer perceived value, both product-related knowledge and skill as well as relationship strength mediate the relationship between customer education and customer perceived value. In addition, customer perceived value is positively related to customer recommendation intention. However, the moderating role of hospital grade was not supported by the data. At last, theoretical contributions, limitations, as well as practical implications are discussed.