Customer Loyalty Analysis of Online Travel Agency App with Customer Satisfaction as A Mediation Variable.

Abstract

In the current era, the internet plays critical roles in people's life. Several activities that used to be done traditionally (offline) have now enter the virtual world. This phenomenon brings a huge change in people's lifestyle who want something has done faster and easier than before. Just like a shopping behavior, customers' activity in travelling is also changed. Nowadays, a lot of people don't go to the traditional of physical (offline) travel agencies. They have switched them with online travel agency app. The concept of satisfaction and loyalty using a website or app based on technology is more popular with the terms E-Customer Satisfaction and E-Customer Loyalty. Some E-Customer Satisfaction determinants which will be examined in this research are app image, customer's inertia, app knowledge and innovativeness. This research conducted by distributing questionnaires to respondents who aged 17 years-old and/or above and they had had used OTA app to purchase travelling product. Questionnaires were distributed to 320 respondents, but only 310 that could be used for analysis. The data were analyzed with Regression Analysis. The results are the app image, customer's inertia, and app knowledge have a positive significant relationship in predicting e-customers satisfaction. Conversely, customers' innovativeness has negative significant relationship in predicting e-customers satisfaction. It means that with the increasing of app image, customer inertia, app knowledge can improve e-customer satisfaction. Also, e-customer satisfaction can be improved by the lack of customers' innovativeness. In the long run, e-customer satisfaction will increase e-customer loyalty.

Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty and Organizational Complaint Handling: Economic Aspects of Business Operation of Airline Industry

“…The similar conclusion has been attained in several other studies that responsiveness to complaint handling is a major factor for the customer satisfaction in case of the airline industry (Etemad-Sajadi & Bohrer, 2019;Lee, 2017). Numerous studies have demonstrated that responsiveness to complaints brought the customer closer, satisfied the customer, and that the satisfied customer led to the increase of such economic aspects as business operations, sales, growth, and profits of the airline industry (Karamata et al, 2017;Dwikesumasari & Ervianty, 2017;Dennett et al, 2000). However, the higher level of service quality bring the customer loyalty and that service quality can be delivered through hospitality and responsiveness to customer complaint handling at the right time (Servera-Frances & Piqueras-Tomas, 2019; Lee, 2017;Metwally, 2013).…”

“…According to Karamata et al (2017), and Majumdar (2005), the customer retention and loyalty can only be possible if the customer is satisfied, and ultimately, the airline company would generate augmented profits and future economic prospects. Thus, based on previous studies, such as Chen and Jai (2019), Cronin and Taylor (1992), Dwikesumasari and Ervianty (2017), and Fornell (1992), it is concluded that retention and loyalty of existing customers are the key factor for the success of the airline industry. According to Blodgett et al (1995), and Chow and Tsui (2017), the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are interchangeable in high quality service organizations; moreover, the customer satisfaction leads to the customer loyalty through positive word of mouth in the airline industry.…”

“…According to Iriqat and Abu-Daqar (2017), the corporate/brand image of the organization could be explained as: "the perceptions of an organization reflected in the associations held in consumers' memory, which distinguishes the organization from other competitors". Trust and reliability trigger the brand image and since there is intense competition in the airline industry, the brand image plays a significant role in attracting new customers for future economic aspect and attaining competitors' advantage amongst competitors (Dwikesumasari & Ervianty, 2017;Nguyen & LeBlance, 2001). Thus, the brand image of the airline company has a distinctive role in trust building amongst passengers, which propels the customer loyalty (Andreassen & Lindestad, 1998), repeat patronage, and customer retention (Lee, 2017;Nguyen & LeBlance, 2001).…”

“…Thus, the airline industry has more severe competition as compared to other service industries. Hence, this intense competition has increased the challenges to the airline industry (Augusto et al, 2019;Dwikesumasari & Ervianty, 2017). The transportation of people and goods from one place to another is of vital importance; thus, the airline industry is categorized as more intangible service business (Law, 2017;Daetz et al, 1995).…”

“…This increases the importance of continuous assessment to define elements that satisfy customer needs and increase the future economic aspects. Handling customer complaints is one of the crucial elements to retain customers (Chen & Jai, 2019;Dwikesumasari & Ervianty, 2017;Iriqat & Abu-Daqar, 2017). A specific consideration is given to analyse customer complaints, due to the specific activities related to customer experiences during the traveling.…”