How do customers' SNS participation activities impact on customer equity drivers and customer loyalty? Focus on the SNS services of a global SPA brand

Abstract

As SNS services develop, consumer participation becomes more important in the process of service production and delivery, especially in the service marketing field. Consumer participation contributes to increases in companies' productivity and service quality. Therefore, the roles played by consumers include co-producer or co-operator of products or services, as well as contributor to increased quality of product, satisfaction and values. In addition to using SNS to share their opinions, thoughts and experiences, consumers have taken a step further, also using SNS to sell and buy products and to share promotions and reviews about the products. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to define constructs of customers' SNS participation activities in global SPA brands. Measurement items were extracted from previous studies and from in-depth interviews. The study examines the effects of customers' SNS participation activities on customer equity drivers – value equity, brand equity and relationship equity – in global SPA brands. Data are analyzed by factor analysis, frequency analysis, correlation and structural equation modeling using SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0. The results of this study are as follows: first, there are six constructs of customers' SNS participation activities – request, e-WOM, helping, cooperation, new media seeking and sharing. Second, there are two constructs of customers' SNS participation activities – e-WOM and cooperation that have a positive influence on value equity and brand equity. E-WOM, especially, also affects relationship equity. Third, customer equity drivers have an impact on customer loyalty. This study provides evidence of difference between customer participation activities in offline and online circumstances. Moreover, it shows how customers' SNS participation activities have powerful effects on drivers of customer equity drivers and customer loyalty. This study, therefore, suggests the important role of customers' SNS participation activities in increasing customer equity toward fashion brand industries.