Customers’ service-related engagement, experience, and behavioral intent: Moderating role of age

Though customer engagement (CE) and experience are important research priorities, empirically derived insight into these concepts and their associations remains scarce. We therefore investigate the impact of CE on experience and behavioral intent, which we explore in the tourism context. We also envisage customer age to moderate the proposed associations, thereby further contributing to the CE literature. To investigate these issues, we collected data from key tourism-sites in Jammu/Kashmir, Northern India. Using structural equational modeling, we find that CE dimensions exert differential effects on customer experience. The findings also reveal a stronger, significant effect of younger customers' (up to 39) cognitive engagement on experience, whereas a negligible effect is attained for older customers. While the paths from affective/behavioral engagement to experience are significant across all age groups, the association's strength rises with customer age. Moreover, the effect of customer experience on behavioral intention intensifies as customers get older. We conclude by outlining key implications that arise from our analyses, followed by avenues for further research. •Though customer engagement (CE) and experience are key research priorities, empirically derived insight into these concepts and their association remains scarce.•We thus investigate the impact of CE on experience and behavioral intent in the tourism context.•Using structural equational modeling, we find that CE dimensions exert differential effects on customer experience.•Findings reveal a significant effect of younger customers' cognitive engagement on experience, whereas this effect is non-significant for older customers.•Paths from affective/behavioral engagement to experience are significant across all age groups, the association's strength rises with customer age.