The Relationship Between Customer Experience Values and Customer Loyalty in Virtual Brand Community

Citation

Song, Youkai. (2019). The relationship between customer experience values and customer loyalty in virtual brand community. (Thesis). Bangkok: Graduate School Siam, University.

Abstract

This study aimed to explore: 1) the relationship between different customer experience values and community loyalty and brand loyalty in virtual brand community; 2) its implication on private universities of Thailand in constructing brand loyalty for Chinese students; and 3) to propose the Marketing Decision Support System (MDSS) for Private universities of Thailand in a virtual brand community. This was a quantitative research. The employed instrument was a questionnaire. The research sample consisted of 538 Chinese students from different private universities in Bangkok, obtained by multi-stage random sampling technique. Path analysis was employed as the hypothesis testing. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the brand loyalty model in a virtual community, and the SEM outputs generated were utilized as inputs for Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to rank perspectives of the alternatives derived in brand loyalty in virtual brand community.

The result of the questionnaires showed: community loyalty positively impacted by practical value (β = 0.111) and social value (β= 0.519), but negatively impacted by entertainment value (β= -0.019); brand loyalty positively impacted by practical value (β = 0.155), entertainment value (β = 0.137), and social value (β = 0.098), finally, brand loyalty was positively influenced by community loyalty (β = 0.492).
The results of this study raised the value of the brand marketing strategy to build customer loyalty in terms of brand loyalty, set up and implementing Marketing Decision Support System (MDSS) for Thailand private universities. Firstly, “from brand co-creating to value co-creating” was the brand marketing strategy; secondly, put the customer experience values which implied practical values, entertainment values, social values in a virtual brand community as important data and indicators for Marketing Decision Support System (MDSS). This is especially evident for private universities and or them to supply the referring guidance for decision-makers to obtain more knowledge about the priority of Chinese students.

Keywords: Brand loyalty, Marketing Decision Support System, Private University of Thailand, Chinese students.

Doctor of Business Administration in Marketing, Siam University, Bangkok, Thailand

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