Abstract
A well-crafted customer value proposition (CVP) is crucial to communicating the value that customers can expect from a product or service experience. Accordingly, researchers have become increasingly interested in how to shape CVPs to sell goods or services, especially in the business-to-business (B2B) context. This is particularly relevant for subscription businesses, where subscribers typically pay a set amount for the continuous use of a service or product and which aim to ensure that customers keep renewing their subscriptions over a long period of time. However, relatively little is known about how to adapt or change a CVP for existing subscribers. Therefore, by conducting an explorative single case study, this article aims to investigate how CVPs are managed in a subscription-based business market. By revealing CVPs’ dynamics in a subscription business, we show how a CVP is embedded in a sales cycle and discuss the consequences of the often staircase-shaped pattern of experienced value in use that emerges during a subscription contract. Based on these insights, our results provide guidance for companies entering the subscription market as well as for existing subscription providers on how to retain their customers.
