Abstract
Notwithstanding the increasing acknowledgment of prominence of Brand Loyalty (BL), in business performance, research efforts directed at investigating the relationship among Brand Service Quality (ServQ), Brand Experience (BE), Brand Trust (BT) and Brand Loyalty (BL) in the context of Kurdistan Region internet service industry, have largely been neglected. Therefore, the principal objective of this study is to fill this void. Service quality in this research is measured in two dimensions: technical and functional, while BE is measured in four dimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral. In particular, the current study seeks to explore the direct effects of Technical Service Quality (TQ) and Functional Service Quality (FQ) on consumer BE, BT and BL; and the mediating role of BE in brand service quality – brand trust relationship. Moreover, the direct impact of BT on BL along with the mediating role of BT in the BE-BL relationship will also be examined. To empirically test the posited research hypotheses, data is collected from internet consumers in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil provinces of the Kurdistan region in Iraq. In total, 485 internet users were interviewed in the region. The collected data were analyzed using IBM AMOS 23. Findings demonstrate that the Technical Quality of internet services impacts Brand Experience more positively than Functional Quality does. On the contrary, Functional Quality affects the customer Brand Trust directly while Technical Quality does not have any direct impact on the customer Brand Trust. Secondly, It is also observed that Brand Experience significantly mediates the relations between Technical Quality and Brand Trust. The direct impact of the Functional Quality on Brand Trust was stronger than the mediation effect of Brand Experience between Functional Quality and Brand Trust. It was observed that Brand Trust had a significant impact on customer Brand Loyalty. Lastly, Brand Trust significantly mediates the relations between Brand Experience and Brand Loyalty.
Highlights
The rapid growth of the internet and the ease and the pace with which people adopted internet services and devices have made it one of the most lucrative industries in recent times
To achieve the uphill task of retaining customers in such a competitive market, this study aims to assist the businesses in the internet services industry to identify the dimensions of service quality that lead to better brand experience and trust, and eventually to customer retention via brand loyalty
Demographic information of the respondents, such as gender and nationality are given in Table 1, along with the internet packages they have been using and the amount they have been spending on internet services on monthly basis
Summary
The rapid growth of the internet and the ease and the pace with which people adopted internet services and devices have made it one of the most lucrative industries in recent times. Internet users are defined as people who can access the internet, using their computers, mobile phones, tablets or other devices, at home or at the workplace (Antoun, 2015). The Internet helps users in all walks of life such as communication, social networking, information searching and sharing, online shopping, education and some commercial activities (Antoun, 2015). Various communication technologies such as DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), Fiber Optic Service, WiMAX, Satellite broadband network, and Mobile broadband network (3G or 4G) etc provide the internet to the users (Rashid, Faraj & Shareef, 2016). The number of internet users in Kurdistan alone exceeded 2
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
