Enhancing Brand Loyalty: A Relationship Marketing Perspective within the Context of Contractual Services

Abstract

Keeping customers loyal is extremely important in services contexts. The overall purpose of this study is to stress the importance of building brand relationships and enhancing brand loyalty in contractual service contexts through customer satisfaction and customer-brand identification perspectives. This study tested a conceptual model using a cross-sectional sampling design to collect the appropriate data. 101 customers of pay TV services participated in this research. Results reveal that both satisfaction and customer-brand identification have a positive effect on loyalty. Customer satisfaction mediates the linkage between the two cognitive constructs of perceived quality and perceived price and brand loyalty, accordingly. Further, emotional value has a moderating effect on the relationship between satisfaction and brand loyalty, while the indirect effect of both perceived quality and perceived price on brand loyalty via customer satisfaction is stronger when emotional value is high. The findings provide researchers with important theoretical implications as they render a deep and integrative understanding of different antecedents of brand attitudinal loyalty in contractual service markets and contractual service providers with strategic directions to increase customer loyalty. Limitations and suggestions for future research in this area are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Contractual service context
• customer satisfaction
• emotional value
• customer-brand identification
• brand loyalty
• moderated-mediation model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).