How service operations, perceived benefit, and psychological ownership enhance customer retention in retail - evidence in Vietnam supermarkets

In a world with enormous opportunities and challenges from the 4.0 revolution and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, customer retention is more important than ever for retailers. While marketing and advertising can be more or less limited during the pandemic, retailers pay more attention to the supply and service operations of products as salvage to satisfy the essential demands of customers. However, few scholars discuss the effects of service operations on customer retention in retail because it is lower consumer awareness and challenging to measure accurately and adequately. Therefore, with the foundation of commitment-trust theory, this study examines service operations' direct and indirect effects on customer retention through perceived benefit in omnichannel retailers. Simultaneously, it assesses how psychological ownership affects customer retention and moderates the effect of perceived benefit on customer retention in the Vietnamese supermarket as empirical evidence. The combination of a qualitative method (with 32 in-depth interviews) and a quantitative method (through a survey conducted with 374 shoppers) is implemented. Partial least-squares structural equation modelling with SmartPLS software is utilized for data analysis and hypothesis testing. From the findings, the study offers an operations perspective and a customer view of how to store service operations contribute to customer perception of benefits and customer retention. Interestingly, the study discovered that psychological ownership is not only a critical antecedent of customer retention but also enhances the effect of perceived benefit on customer retention as its moderating role. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Does Brand Personality Mediate the Link between Social Media Usage and Customer Buying Decisions on Telecommunication's Products and Services? Evidence from Ghana

Social media marketing has vastly benefitted businesses, including the development of brand identity via solid communication channels. Innovative marketing tools have proven effective among service and non-service-based businesses. This study examines the impact of social media on customer buying decisions via brand personality attributes among telecom products (e.g., mobile phones, sim cards, and data subscriptions) in Ghana. A positivist research paradigm with a non-probability sampling were deployed to achieve study goals. A structured questionnaire was designed to collect the data from subscribers of the telecom giants (MTN, Vodafone, and Airtel-Tigo) in the capital of Ghana through a non-probability sampling technique (snowball/referral method). Both self-administered and online survey (link) were deployed with strict adherence to Covid-19 protocols. A valid data set of 414 (representing 82% of response rate) from 507 responses was received for data processing. PLS-SEM was applied to analyze the study hypothesis. The study identified five main brand personality attributes (i.e., brand sincerity, brand excitement, brand competence, brand sophistication, and brand ruggedness) as mediators of the proposed framework. The study found that brand sincerity, brand excitement, and brand competence played a significant mediation effect on the relationship between social media usage and customer buying decisions, whereas brand sophistication and brand ruggedness did not. The findings suggest that brand management plays an interconnected role in customer decision-making in which brand practitioners should take a keynote regarding their strategic marketing decisions. Finally, the paper recommends that future research consider a mixed approach to offer an in-depth analysis.