Commitment Ladder in the Relationship between Service Providers and Customers as Added Value in Sustainable Services Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is true that IT innovation, has revolutionised traditional models of service delivery and resulted in considerable changes in customer behaviour. The distinction between "traditional" and "modern services" should not be, however, measured purely by IT-intensity. Moreover, it is arguable whether "traditional" service is "saturated with knowledge" to lesser extent than "modern service".  Lawyers and doctors still deliver knowledge-intensive services in a traditional, F2F manner. Self-service is another feature which does not necessarily concern only "moden services" (see for example: A. Payne).  The self-service model was described in the service management literature as early as in the 1980's (before the IT revolution). When discussing the "Essential and optional features for a modern service" (p. 4) it is advisable to refer to the concepts of in-/outbound marketing. The value of the paper would be increased if the Author made a clearer distincition between the diffferent applications of IT in services (promotion (incl. social media), back-office, customer interface/front-office). The definition of the 5 levels of commitment (p. 12) is not precise enough (e.g. "indicates the highest degree of commitment, that is, full committment") - some examples (additional column(s) with actual examples would be helpful in Table 3). Scholarly literature on neuroscience would be helpful to explain further the concept of engagement.  The "Limitaton " sections should be extended. Many of the findings draw on the literature from 1990's when neuroscience was widely applied in the literature on service management.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article addresses important issues pertaining to relationships between service providers and customers that occur in development of sustainable services. The results of the qualitative research conducted by an Author, are presented in the “ladder of commitment” model. Not only does the Author identifies distinct commitment levels, but he also determines specific commitment factors operating on each of those levels.  Considering the changes occurring in the service sector, the Author pays special attention to hybrid services. He focusses on managing customer engagement and using interactive technology for building relationships in sustainable modern services. Moreover, the Author tries to fill the existing knowledge gap in this area.

In my opinion, the article faces several problems. I would suggest considering the following changes:

- The abstract can be improved to better convey the main results of the paper,

- The structure of the section Literature Review/Theoretical Basis should be reconsidered. Introducing the classification of presented issues into so many sub-sections seems to be redundant and unnecessary. Moreover, in sub-section 2.2. Interactive Technologies in Modern Services and in sub-section 2.3. Social Interactions in Customer Value Management the author describes to a large extent the changes occurring in the analyzed sector and social media enabling the development and improvement of interactions between service providers and customers. The issues presented in the 2nd section, in my opinion, should focus on the theoretical aspects to a greater extent. I would suggest moving them to section 4, or section 3.

- The description of particular stages of the research method should be developed. The Author selected 3 service industries. Has the Author taken into account the specifics of the studied sectors and to what extent ? Information regarding in-depth reviews and focus group interview should be presented in more details.

- The section on theoretical issues is a bit too developed in relation to the presentation of the results.

- The discussion on the results should be developed and more extensively supported with the publications. Recommendations for business, Conclusions and limitations also need to be developed. I would also consider rearranging the structure of the article and not dividing them into individual sections.        

- I would also consider complementing the English language publications with Polish references. In some places there are only references to literature in Polish.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1. In introduction, please provide more detailed information regarding the gap in the previous research papers in the related area of this topic. Rather than simply mentioning that this topic is poorly studied, please provide the detail.
2. This comment may be related to the first one. The aim of the study is not so clear in the introduction. Please, make it clear.
3. Please provide theoretical and practical implication clearly in the introduction.
4. In the literature review part, it seems there are many parts irrelevant to the main topic of this paper (e.g., technology part is lengthy).
5. Methodology part is not clear. Please, provide more detailed informatioin. And, section 3.1 is difficult to follow. Also, it is not so persuasive. Please, modify the most part of this section.
6. It seems that the aim of this paper is to explore service providers-customer relationship in the hybrid services area. But, I cannot clearly see "hybrid service" part in the methodology and result part. 
7. Please, provide clear theoretical and practical implication of this study. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

• A better explanation of methodological procedures is required: Case study approach - Explain the methodological procedures: Is the study based on previous case studies from other authors for this purpose or it is case study developed by collected data in the current work?
  Are the interviews a technique for collecting data from the present case study? What kind of data collection techniques are used? Interviews? Company documents? Videos?
• The description of data analysis techniques are missing. How did the authors get the results? This is a very critical point at present work.
• The form of the text should also be improved: avoid paragraphs with a single sentence (e.g. page 2, lines 50/51; page 4, lines 132,133);
   replace in all tables and figures the expressions like "own elaboration", "own study", by Adapted from (number of the bibliographic reference). In the case where the source is from the work itself, nothing is mentioned, no source; because it is assumed that it belongs to the author of the work when the source does not appear. This is particularly for the results section.
• References: Review the references: avoid the abbreviations of the sources (Reviews and Journals); better consistency between the use of uppercase / lowercase letters in the font titles.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I believe the manuscript has been significantly improved and now warrants publication in Sustainability.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for your answer and for introducing the changes in a transparent way. I don't have any other remarks.

Reviewer 3 Report

You well reflected the comments I provided in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much for your effort in the revision.