Do Service Quality and Social Media Marketing Improve Customer Retention in Hotels? Testing the Mediation Effect

Abstract

Customer retention is a critical factor in companies’ survival, and both service quality and social media are important means of retaining customers. However, despite this importance of these antecedents, only a few studies considered the effects of these factors in the hotel industry literature. With the application of social exchange theory, the current research aims to evaluate the effect of service quality and social media marketing on customer retention in hotels, and evaluates how customer satisfaction, brand awareness and brand image mediate this association. After pre-testing the questionnaire, data of this research was collected from 4- and 5-star hotel customers in various cities of the Czech Republic. Before testing the hypotheses, data have been tested in term of checking reliability and validity. Moreover, the probability of common-method bias was also tested in order to ensure there is no variation caused by study method or instrument. Testing the hypotheses was done using correlation and regression analysis afterwards. Findings of this research indicated that service quality and social media marketing improve customer satisfaction, brand awareness, and brand image. Moreover, customer satisfaction, brand awareness, and brand image are also antecedents of customer retention. Findings also confirmed that these three factors (customer satisfaction, brand awareness, and brand image) play the mediation roles between Service quality and revisit intention, and also between social media marketing and revisit intention. Results of this research showed the importance of both service quality and social media marketing in order to achieve better customer outcomes and encourage clients to revisit the hotel. The findings can provide important managerial and practical implications to the hotel industry.

Impact of social media on the sales of a Peruvian hotel corporations

“…The respondents confirmed that the use of social media makes the brand more popular among foreigners, as brand awareness plays an important role in customer satisfaction (Cheraghalizadeh & Dědková, 2022). Furthermore, the respondents mentioned that social media is helpful in providing information about the company's services and benefits, obtaining comments from guests and the hotel's reputation, as well as the exchange of information about prices and promotions, in addition to information about the hotel chain.…”

“…Furthermore, 100% of the respondents stressed that social networks have contributed to brand awareness, indicating that "it has been possible to reach many more people, many more potential customers all over Peru" (Lambayeque Manager, personal communication, May 2, 2023). Cheraghalizadeh & Dědková (2022), indicated that social network marketing helps with customer retention.…”

“…Likewise, Cheraghalizadeh & Dědková (2022) evaluated the relation between service quality and social media marketing to retain hotel guests; discovered that both variables are relevant to improving customer satisfaction. They further discovered that customer satisfaction, brand awareness and social media marketing play an important role in retaining customers.…”

The Effect of Social Media Marketing on Customer Retention Mediated by Customer Engagement

“…The findings of Mustika & Farid identified that Social Media Marketing has a positive effect on Customer Retention (Mustika & Farid, 2022). In the results of previous studies, it shows that Social Media Marketing affects Customer Retention (Cheraghalizadeh & Dědková 2022;Menajang et al 2023).…”

“…The gap related to this research is that previous research succeeded in the overview perspective and did not explore the concepts and understanding related to Customer Retention. In previous research (Bozkurt et al 2021;Cheraghalizadeh & Dědková, 2022;Hidayat & Martini 2020;Joshi et al2022;Ramadhanty & Mei Ulina Malau, 2020;Sashi et al 2019;Vohra & Bhardwaj, 2019) shows different aspects of variables, it is rare to find research that examines Social Media Marketing on Customer Retention mediated by Customer Engagement. Based on the explanation above, this research aims to determine the effect of Social Media Marketing on Customer Retention with Customer Engagement as a Mediating Variable on e-commerce users.…”