Port Logistics Service Industry Customer Loyalty Influencing Factors

In recent years, with the development of international trade, the environment of shipping and ports had tremendous changes. Especially in northeast Asia, the world largest container cargo distribution center, we have seen the increasing shipping volume driven by the fast growth of China's economy, which results in fierce competition among the ports of this area. From the perspective of port marketing, we find it is of significance that the full understanding of shipping carrier's satisfaction, trust and loyalty towards ports will be important to enhance the competitiveness of the ports and avoid the unhealthy competition among them.From the literature review and the status quo of port logistics service industry, we find both the service quality and relationship quality have become the main strategy for all the ports in the world to enhance their competitiveness under the environment of global fierce competition. Under the theme of customer loyalty in the port logistics industry and its influencing factors like service quality and relationship quality, the paper intends to explore how customer perceived value and satisfaction are impacted by service and relationship quality of port logistics industry, how customer satisfaction is impacted by customer perceived value, how customer trust is impacted by customer satisfaction, and finally how customer loyalty is impacted by customer perceived value, customer satisfaction and customer trust. Nine research hypotheses have been made under the above framework.The study is based on survey approach, and all the major domestic container shipping carriers calling at ports of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Dalian with their land offices are the targets of questionnaire. 330 questionnaires were handed out, and 298 were returned, in which, 287, about 86.97% were effective. Tooled by calculating software SPSS15.0, the effective data were analyzed by basic statistical analysis, factor analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis.Through empirical analysis of this study, the main conclusions drawn are as follows 1. Service quality of port logistics has great influence on the perceived value of the customer. The service quality is consisted of technological quality, functional quality and physical conditions, in which, functional quality and physical conditions have positive correlation with the perceived value of the customer, while the technological quality has less correlation. It is proved that port enterprises should strengthen the functional quality and optimize the physical conditions so as to increase the customer perceived value on the ports.2. Service quality of port logistics has great influence on the customer satisfaction. The service quality is consisted of technological quality, functional quality and physical conditions, in which, only functional quality has positive correlation with customer satisfaction, while the technological quality and physical conditions have less correlation. It is proved that port enterprises should strengthen the functional quality so as to increase the customer satisfaction with the ports.3. Port relationship quality has great influence on the perceived value of the customer. Port relationship quality is consisted of personalized service, information sharing, and relation continuity, in which personalized service and relationship continuity have positive correlation with the perceived value of the customer, while information sharing has no correlation. It is proved that port enterprises should strengthen the personalized service and relationship continuity so as to increase the customer perceived value on the ports.4. Port relationship quality has great influence on the customer satisfaction. Port relationship quality is consisted of personalized service, information sharing, and relationship continuity, in which personalized service and relationship continuity have positive correlation with the customer satisfaction, while information sharing has no correlation. The study indicates that port enterprises should strengthen the personalized service and relationship continuity so as to increase the customer satisfaction.5. Customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer trust have an important impact on customer loyalty. Among them, customer perceived value has direct correlation with customer loyalty, and indirectly correlated through customer satisfaction and trust. Similarly, customer satisfaction has direct correlation with customer loyalty, and indirectly correlated through customer trust.6. The physical conditions in the port logistics service quality is not directly related to customer satisfaction, but indirectly related through customer perceived value. The study results indicate that the port enterprise should constantly improve their physical conditions to increase customer perceived value of the port and further enhance customer satisfaction with the port.