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REVIEW
An online community is a valued business medium for companies in terms of
disseminating information and retaining customers. It is considered as a key
strategy for online marketing that can help to build brand loyalty effectively.
Online customer experience is a fundamental concept in understanding
customers perceptions, attitudes and behaviour in online communities. Online
customer experience is an essential factor for e-marketers. Additionally as a
consequence of creating unique customer experiences, which is helping to
attract repeat purchases and differentiate a firm from its competitors (Pine and
Gilmore, 1998). This study discusses the underlying impacts of customers'
interaction experience dimensions on brand loyalty within the context of online
communities. Particularly, this study examines the influence of customers
interaction experience dimensions on trust, satisfaction and brand loyalty and
whether this influence is mediated by customer satisfaction and trust. Few
studies have examined how customers' interaction experiences affect brand
loyalty. Furthermore, satisfaction and trust are expected to be antecedents to
brand loyalty. Little studies have pointed out the link between trust and
satisfaction and how this link can facilitate to drive brand loyalty efficiently
within the context of online communities. This study proposes a framework for
testing the relationships between customers interaction experience dimensions,
satisfaction, trust and brand loyalty.
Keywords: customer experiences,
online communities,
pragmatic experience,
hedonic experience,
usability experience and sociability experience.
Introduction
As a core objective of marketing activities, maintaining and enhancing brand
loyalty have been widely acknowledged (Aaker, 1991; Baldinger and Rubinson,
1996). Brand loyalty value is self-evident for a company (Reichheld, 1996). With
the growing importance of online communities, such as Apple Inc (Macintosh,
iPod, iPhone), researchers and marketers have emphasized that an online
community has an effective impact on participants experience. Participants
experience helps to understand the strategic value of an online community. An
online community is a key for a companys online marketing strategy that can
help to build brand loyalty effectively. Moreover, an online community enables
customers to interact with a company and among themselves.
Marketing activities have focused on success in the product marketplace by
examining the physical aspects of products and services such as quantity,
quality, functionality, availability, accessibility, delivery, price and customer
support. Recently, marketing managers underline the importance of creating
value for their customers (Fudenberg, 2000; McAlexander et al., 2002). The
current orientation in marketing is to create positive and unique experiences for
the customers (Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Gilmore and Pine, 2002). A study by
Shaw and Ivens (2002) shows that about 85 per cent of business leaders approve
those traditional elements like price, delivery are no longer an effective business
strategy .The new differentiator today is customer experience.
Recently, the concept of customer experience has used as a key strategy for
online marketing that, can help to gain competitive advantages. Wherefore, this
study seeks to examine the impact of customer experience demotions on brand
loyalty and whether that impact is moderated by customers satisfaction and
customers trust within the context of online communities.
Research Background
Customer experience
The Customer experience concept has been studied across a range of business
situations, including online business, service delivery, tourism and retailing
(Arnold et al. 2005; Bonnin 2006; Jones 1999; Quan and Wang 2004; Tsai 2005).
Customer experience is defined as the internal and subjective response that
customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company (Meyer and
Schwager, 2007, p. 118). Over the past few years, both marketers and
academics have showed an interest in the measurement and assessment of
customer experiences. Customer experience is considered as a psychological
concept, which is a comprehensive, subjective response developed from
customer contact with companies. This contact could include different levels of
customer participation (Gentile et al 2007; Lemke et al, 2011). Customer
experience is used to enhance the competitive advantage that is difficult to be
imitated (Pine & Gilmore, 1998). As a consequence, an outstanding customer
experiences is critical to marketers in todays global marketplace and can result
in brand awareness, gain customer loyalty and eventually increase profits (Gruen
et al.,Michael, et al, 2006).
Research Gap
The importance of online communities in online business and commutation is
increasing. Additionally, the online business is contributing a large amount of
economic action in the marketing domain (Muniz & OGuinn, 2001). Customers'
interactions in such online communities could help companies to improve
products or services (Fller; el al, 2007). Nambisan and Watt (2011) study how
can manage customer experiences in online product communities, propose a
four dimensional construct of an online community experience to help capture
customer experiences in online communities and examine its impact on
customer attitudes regarding the product, the company and the quality of
service. They argue that there might be other possible impacts of customers
interaction experience in online communities on many others factors such as
brand loyalty. There is a need to pay more attention to study these potential
impacts. A growing body of research in brand communities area (Lycos
Quote.com case study) admit that building an online community has a positive
impact on improved brand loyalty. (Participate.com, 2001b) Moreover, this
increased in brand loyalty has measurable results for each consequence
predicted in: affective, cognitive, and behavioural.
Although there is a dynamic growth in managing and studying customer
interaction experiences within an online community, (Dholakia et al; 2004; Gruen
et al; 2006;Nambisan & Watt, 2011), it is critical for researchers and marketers to
understand what are the customer experiences dimensions of interaction in such
online community and how customers' perceptions about their interaction
experience in the online community could impact their loyalty. There have been
many studies of the factors influencing loyalty, such as service quality, product
quality, information quality, corporate image, price and commitment (Devaraj, et
al 2001; Lee & Kim, 2005; Nguyen & Leblanc, 2001),nevertheless little work
combining brand loyalty with the online community concept. Therefore, the
purpose of this study is to address the gap in the literature concerning this area
of research by developing and empirically testing a model for experience
dimensions of customers interaction experience in an online community.
Moreover, this study aims to point out the impact that customers experience
dimensions have on brand loyalty. In other words, the statement of the study
problem is what the dimensions of customer experiences are and what the
impact of these dimensions on brand loyalty? In addition, past research studies
identify several dimensions and sub-dimensions of customer experiences.
However, further studies may provide benefits in considering other dimensions
like virtual experience (Guttentag, 2010). Therefore, this study will examine the
experience dimensions such as pragmatic experience, hedonic experience,
sociability experience, usability experience (Nambisan & Watt, 2011) and virtual
experience (Guttentag, 2010) and its impact on brand loyalty mediated by
satisfaction (Hye, 2004) and trust (Yoon 2002), with a particular attention paid to
brand loyalty as a final dependent outcome of a great online customer
experience.
Hye (2004) argue that experience has an impact on satisfaction yet there is only
limited research that looks specifically at this impact. Satisfaction is a positive
affective reaction to an outcome of a previous experience and is an essential
factor enhancing business. (Ganesan, 1994). It considered as an important
antecedent of brand loyally. According to Yoon (2002) trust weakens or
strengthens by experience. However, researchers identify that trust is an
antecedent of satisfaction (Grewal et al., 1999). Moreover, Ha and Perks (2005)
assume that trust is influenced by consumers prior experiences and satisfaction.
Chiou (2004) point out that trust affects loyalty and satisfaction directly and
indirectly through perceived value.
Research methodology
The Quantitative approach has a linear and logical structure. Hypotheses take
the structure of expectations about possible causal relation between the
concepts identified in the hypotheses. Therefore, the determination of the causal
relations defined by the hypotheses supported or rejected. The hypotheses will
design to test the relations among the constructs. To investigate the research
hypotheses, a quantitative research method will employ in from a questionnaire
survey. The data will collect through an electronic questionnaire that will be
designing and setting available to customer who interacted and participated in
an online community. Moreover, this method will allow a rich context to conduct
this research. Further, this will clarify the impact of customers' perceptions about
their interaction experience in the online community on brand loyalty mediated
by satisfaction and trust.