Exploring the Impact of Airlines Service Quality on Customer Loyalty: Evidence from Taiwan

Abstract

The purpose of this paper tries to explore what are the key factors to influence customers to choose an airline. The research assesses the service quality, brand image, perceived value and customer loyalty on Taiwan-based airlines. The study analyzes the data by applying structure equation modeling (SEM) from valid 560 questionnaires surveyed in the airports. To validate the measurement model, this study checks scale reliability, overall model fit, and validity using the CFA technology. Moreover, the two major indicators including convergence validity and discriminate validity were employed to assess scale validity. Many prior studies had proved that brand image has a positive influence on perceived value, this study had validated that perceived value has also a positive influence on brand image. The brand image assists in the relation between service quality and loyalty, and perceived value strengthens their relationship. Furthermore, brand image and perceived value mediate the effect of service quality on customer loyalty to display a distal effect. The strategic implications for the effects of service quality lead to repurchase intention and loyalty inclination, which are contributed to both scholarly advancement of knowledge and the state of managerial practice.

The Effect of Service Quality and Electronic Word of Mouth (E-WOM) Towards the Loyalty Through Brand Image (The Study on the Customers of Sriwijaya Air in Indonesia)

“…Bei and Chiao (2001) found evidence that service quality is the basis for motivating the realization of consumer loyalty. This is in line with the research of Chen and Liu (2017) in Taiwan, whose results show that service quality has a significant effect on customer loyalty. The renewal of this study is that this study consists of 4 variables, namely service quality, Electronic Word of Mouth, brand image and customer loyalty, while the research done by Chen and Liu (2017) only examines service quality and customer loyalty.…”

“…This is in line with the research of Chen and Liu (2017) in Taiwan, whose results show that service quality has a significant effect on customer loyalty. The renewal of this study is that this study consists of 4 variables, namely service quality, Electronic Word of Mouth, brand image and customer loyalty, while the research done by Chen and Liu (2017) only examines service quality and customer loyalty. This result is also supported by Mansori et al (2014) in private education institutions in Malaysia, the results of which also show the quality of service affects student loyalty.…”

The Role of In-Flight Service Quality on Value for Money in Business Class: A Logit Model on the Airline Industry

“…Several studies in the airline industry have also investigated the concept of perceived value. When the literature is examined, some studies explained perceived value as value for money (Kashyap and Bojanic 2000;Rajaguru 2016;Šebjan et al 2017), and others explained perceived value as an overall model (Hapsari et al 2017;Chen and Liu 2017;Forgas et al 2010). Kashyap and Bojanic (2000) argued that the perceived value is predominantly critical in passengers' decisions, so businesses should provide value-oriented services.…”

“…If the expectations are very high, ensuring satisfactory service quality depends on a higher service performance. Because services are abstract in nature (Chen and Liu 2017), the evaluation of service quality is based on perceptions. Service quality has made a tremendous impact and has attracted practitioners and theorists since it was conceptualized.…”

Exploring the Mediated and Moderated Effects of Operator Service Quality on Customer Retention: Evidence from Taiwan’s Mobile Market

“…Hossain and Dwivedi (2015) investigated the role of confirmation through direct, mediating and moderating effects, and validated that service quality is evaluated in the confirmation stage to affect customer satisfaction (CS), the customers' continuance intention (CI), and the confirmation moderates the relationship between CS and CI. Chen and Liu (2017a)explored that brand image and perceived value mediate the effect of service quality on customer loyalty to display a distal effect. Chen and Liu (2017b) applied structural equation modeling to propose the 'competitive position' in the mobile industry to be a moderating variable between customer satisfaction and customer retention.…”