Special Session SIM-AMS: We Are the Champions! The Role of Conversational Marketing on Fan Engagement: An Abstract

Despite the opportunities of conversational marketing, today little has been investigated regarding the role of the fan/team conversation in sport management through the use of digital engagement platforms (such as instant messaging apps) and regarding the impact generated by their involvement on fan engagement and loyalty. The literature on sport management has investigated the role of social media in the behavior of supporters (Na et al. 2019; Li et al. 2019; Filo et al. 2015; Stavros et al. 2013) but to date little is known about the role of conversation in service production processes in contexts of digital engagement platforms that lead the consumer from involvement to loyalty to a brand team: therefore, understanding the role that these have in the transition from lead generation actions to satisfaction and loyalty is a priority for those sports companies who wish to ride the wave of innovation in customer relations. This paper proposes a research model for investigating the effect on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty of the three dimensions of the customer engagement construct on Mobile Instant Messaging Apps when they are used as Engagement Platforms in a conversational marketing approach. In addition, the aim of this paper is to verify the mediating role of fan engagement and satisfaction on loyalty to the sports team. A survey was conducted on fans of a famous football team in Italy that recently, has decided to use WhatsApp (Mobile Instant Messaging App) to allow fans to communicate directly with football players. To test the hypotheses, a regression sequence was performed to evaluate the relationships between engagement and involvement and the mediating effect of fan engagement and satisfaction, checking for gender, instruction level and age. The results highlight the importance of emotional engagement on fan satisfaction and the role of behavioral engagement through the use of WhatsApp for enhancing fan commitment. The results also reveal that involvement and fan engagement are determining for the loyalty to the sports team and for the continued use of the MIM apps in the future. In particular, this is true for young people who are particularly satisfied when using WhatsApp with players. It means that WhatsApp, also in sports management, is capable of giving young fans a more active role, increasing the fan engagement by means of emotional and behavioural engagement. Fans who are engaged and more satisfied thanks to the use of MIM apps can be ambassadors for the sport brand thus affecting the WoM and the support to the team. For this reason, sports team managers have to consider the MIM app as a tool that can increase fan engagement.