Purpose: As business customers generally possess significant share of knowledge and resources necessary for creation of knowledge intensive business services, their participation is of utmost importance to create the services successfully. However, little is known about how to achieve superior customer participation. Hence, the purpose of this study is to empirically investigate how to improve customer participation in creation and implementation knowledge intensive business services.

Approach: This study used a multiple case study methodology. Empirical data have been collected from three dyadic cases, each case containing one service provider and one customer organization. With the help of NVivo 10 software, data has been analyzed through the stages of coding, categorization, comparison, and further analysis.

Findings: In this study, special attention has been paid not to focus only on one side, and bring the acts and behaviors of both the customer’s and bring the service provider’s under the spotlight. Empirical findings show that joint need assessment and solution design, extent of importance from the customer, elimination of customer’s internal challenges, intensity from the service provider, appropriate value propositions and core offerings development, establishment of trust between the customer and the service provider, and understanding and respecting the business culture of each other play essential roles in improving customer participation.

Research implications: This study shows the limitations of existing knowledge on improving customer participation especially in business-to-business settings, and identifies different areas which require meaningful scientific contributions. Based on the findings, future research ideas are suggested.

Practical implications: For practitioners, the study offers concrete advice on how customer participation can be improved in different phases of creating services, especially in technical projects.

Originality/value: The study extends empirical understanding on customer participation, and proposes a framework of critical elements that should be included in creation of knowledge intensive business services to support customer participation.