Investigation into waiting time, self-service technology and customer loyalty: The mediating role of waiting time satisfaction

Description

The dynamism and competitiveness in today’s business environment has made it an imperative for an organization/firm to enhance their operation performance, among which is the waiting time that is peculiar to service industry, that could possibly affect the loyalty of the customer to the service provider. This Book examines the customers’ satisfaction with waiting time and customers’ loyalty relationship in an airline industry. The mediating influence of “waiting time satisfaction” , “self-service technology” and customers’ loyalty relationship was also examined. Structured Questionnaires were administered at Sabiha Gokcen and Istanbul International Airports in Turkey, and “Partial least square Structural equation modeling” (SEM) was employed for the model analysis. Our findings reveal that self-service technology, perceived, retrospective, and prospective waiting times are major determinants of waiting time satisfaction. Furthermore, self-service technology and waiting time satisfaction were found to have linear and significant positive influence on customers’ loyalty. Our study therefore suggest that the airport management should identify the causes of waiting time, make the waiting environment to be conducive for the customers, these will make the waiting time inconsequential to the customers, and thus enhance their loyalty to the airport.