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Purpose The paper aims to explain why the customer value construct is important to resource‐based view (RBV) scholars and how one might define it to study it. Design/methodology/approach By a summary of the ideas behind the RBV and previously applied definitions of customer value, the paper explains why Woodruff's multidimensional definition of customer value is suited to studying customer value from a managerial perspective. To this end, it develops a framework and derives three research questions for studying how managers use the firm's resources to create customer value. Findings It was found that to understand how managers invest in dynamic capabilities to create customer value one must identify how a firm's managers develop a shared understanding of their customers' values and the firm's capacity to deliver on them. This shared understanding will need to reflect customers' multidimensional values and what is most important to the firm. Practical implications These phenomena are best studied qualitatively because the focus is on understanding how managers work together and use the resources at their disposal to create customer value. The performance effects of different resource investment decisions can be examined by including high and low performing firms in the study dataset. Originality/value The paper describes a framework that can explain how managers map customer value and its different dimensions against the resources at the firm which they believe can deliver an optimal product and service mix to the firm's customers.