Analyzing the Impact of Service Quality on Brand Loyalty in Pakistan Airline Industry

Abstract

With ever-growing competition in airline industry, a common goal for firms is to achieve customer satisfaction and ensure brand loyalty. The importance of service quality and customer satisfaction magnifies when companies try to retain their customer and gain competitive advantage in market. Purpose – The goal of this research is to find out whether service quality (SERVQUAL scale) results in customer satisfaction and if customer satisfaction leads service quality to brand loyalty through mediation in Pakistan’s airline industry. Apart from this, it is also intended to find out the service quality dimension that has the largest impact on customer service. Literature Review – Takeaways from previous studies about service quality, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty are listed to find out which relationships are already developed and find out a research gap. This forms the foundation for hypothesis of this research. Method – An online Google questionnaire was administered that included items regarding dimensions of service quality as per the SERVQUAL scale, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, along with a section regarding demographics and flight information. A total of 243 valid responses were collected which were used to perform a descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis and mediation analysis using SPSS (v26.0) and Hayes Process Macro (v4.2). Results – It was observed that all service quality dimensions except empathy positively and significantly impacts customer satisfaction in Pakistan’s airline industry while assurance is the most important dimension causing variance in customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction was also found to be partially mediating between service quality and brand loyalty. This study indicates that service quality should be given more importance to ensure that the customers are satisfied and loyal to the brand. Besides, it signifies assurance as the most important factor contributing towards satisfaction of customers in airline industry of Pakistan