Study On The Relationship Between Omni-channel Customer Experience And Customer Loyalty

In recent years,great changes have taken place in the retail industry.On the one hand,in order to serve their customers better and increase profits,retail enterprises has to increase and integrate new shopping channels and become all-channel retailers.The core of the Omni-channel is to provide consumers with the best overall shopping experience centered on consumers(Hansen&Sia,2015).On the other hand,with the improvement of Chinese consumer's digitization,the online penetration rate of some categories of consumer goods has reached over 50%.Consumer shopping behavior has Omni-channel characteristics.Nowadays,there is no pure online or offline consumer.Consumers are increasingly inclined to Omni-channel shopping.Consumers are no longer loyal to a certain channel in one shopping process,but willing to choose between the physical channel,the network channel and the mobile channel according to demand.They switch between different channels at will expecting to get a seamless and consistent shopping experience in the different channels of Omni-channel retailer.The continuous growth of the Omni-channel shoppers has brought about many challenges(Kelly,2002).One of the challenges is that companies may lose shoppers in the process of shopping(Nunes&Cespedes,2003).In the process of Omni-channel shopping,consumers are easier to replace the retailer.So there are some phenomenon of exhibition hall and anti-exhibition hall,such as consumer experience products in the Suning physical store,and finally decide to buy at Jingdong APP for lower price.Customer loyalty is a problem concerned by all Omni-channel retailer.Omni-channel retailer is confused about that they have put into so much effort in building Omni-channel systems to provide a better customer experience,whether the consumer will like them more and Repurchase,become a loyal customer.The specific research process and research contents are as follows:Theorists have made some preliminary studies on Omni-channel customer loyalty.There are some significant achievements in these studies.However,the definition and measurement of Omni-channel customer loyalty in these studies mainly refer to the traditional definition and scale of customer loyalty,and ignore the connotation changes of customer loyalty brought about by the change of business model of Omni-channel retailers.At the same time,the research on customer loyalty based on experience is also lacking.The relationship between customer experience and customer loyalty has been widely verified in the context of single channel,but whether this relationship is also applicable in the context of full channel remains to be verified.One of the main research directions in future of Omni-channel marketing is how to integrate various channels to provide customers with an overall shopping experience to enhance customer loyalty(Pookulangara,2011).In view of this,based on S-O-R theory,purchase decision-making process theory,perceptual integrity theory and technology acceptance model,this paper explores the connotation and extension of Omni-channel customer loyalty,developes the measurement scale of Omni-channel customer experience,and examines the relationship between Omni-channel customer experience and Omni-channel customer loyalty.The specific research process and research contents are as follows:Firstly,on the basis of literature review,this paper explores the definition and dimension of Omni-customer loyalty by Deductive reasoning.Then,the relationship model of customer information search experience and process loyalty are constructed and tested.Next,using the key event method and empirical research,this paper determined the dimension and measurement indicators of Omni-channel customer experience.Fianlly,the relationship model of Omni-channel customer experience and post-purchase loyalty are constructed and tested.The conclusions are as follows:(1)Customers with better information search experience in access channels will have higher information search satisfaction,and then will be more likely to produce process loyalty behavior;(2)Information search satisfaction in acess channel plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between functional,entertaining and social information search experience and process loyalty.Moreover,indirect effect>direct effect,so the mediating effect of information search satisfaction in acess channel is very notable;(3)When cross-channel promotion quality is higher,customers with higher information search satisfaction in acess channel are more likely to produce process loyalty behavior.On the contrary,if cross-channel promotion quality is low,customers with high information search satisfaction in acess channel will not necessarily visit other channels of the Omni-channel retailer,resulting in process loyalty behavior;(4)the Omni-channel customer experience is divided into functional experience,economic experience,emotional experience and social experience.Functional experience includes consistency experience,ease to use experience and usefulness experience,the Omni-channel customer experience scale includes four dimensions and 21 items;(5)Regular Omni--channel shopping behavior is rare,and while occasional all-channel shopping behavior is very common.Both product categories and gender affect Omni-channel shopping behavior.Omni-channel shopping behavior occurs more in the shopping process of personalized demand,high price,high experience characteristics and unfamiliar product.Female are more likely to conduct Omni-channel shopping behavior than male;(6)Omni-channel customer cognition experiments have a significant positive impact on economic experience;(7)Better Omni-channel customer experience lead to higher customer post-purchase loyalty.All the six Omni-channel customer experience dimensions,such as consistency experience,ease of use experience,usefulness experience,economic experience,emotional experience and social experience,have positive effects on Omni-channel customer post-purchase loyalty;(8)Omni-channel customer trust plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between Omni-channel customer experience and Omni-channel customer post-purchase loyalty.Good Omni-channel customer experience lead to high Omni-channel customer trust,and high Omni-channel customer trust will promote Omni-channel customers post-purchase loyalty.It is noteworthy that Omni-channel customer trust plays a full mediating role in the relationship between the relationship of consistent experience,easy to use experience,usefulness experience and Omni-channel customer post-purchase loyalty,and plays a partially mediates in the relationship between the relationship of economic experience,emotional experience,social experience and Omni-channel customer post-purchase loyalty.(9)Omni-channel Customers with high switching costs are more likely to convert their trust into post-purchase loyalty.According to the conclusions of the study,this paper puts forward some suggestions and strategies for the problem of Omni-channel customer loyalty:(1)attaching importance to the Omni-channel customer process loyalty and post-purchase loyalty;(2)strengthening channel integration to enhance the shopping experience of Omni-channel customers;(3)attaching importance to the role of customer trust in enterprise operation.(4)improve the level of customer information search experience;(5)improve customer satisfaction in the process of information searching;(6)pay attention to the characteristics of customers'purchasing behavior for different products,strengthen the construction of Omni-channel;(7)strengthen the guidance of Omni-channel shopping behavior of female consumer.There are several innovations in this paper:(1)the connotation and dimension of customer loyalty are redefined,and this enriches the theory of customer loyalty.This paper defines Omni-channel customer loyalty as customer retention across channels in a single shopping process and Re-patronage,recommendation,preferential choice of the retailer in multiple purchases.The Omni-channel customer loyalty is divided into two dimensions:process loyalty and post-purchase loyalty.Post-purchase loyalty is a traditional sense of customer loyalty.It is measured by three items:repurchase intention,recommendation intention and choosing preferentially.Process loyalty is a new research field of customer loyalty brought about by the change of the Omni-channel retailer's business mode.The cross-channel retention behavior in a single shopping process is defined as the Omni-channel customer process loyalty;(2)the dimensions_and measurement indicators of the Omni-channel customer experience are determined for the first time,and this enriches the customer experience research.Based on the existing literature,this paper defines the connotation of Omni-channel customer experience,and finds that the Omni--channel customer experience can be divided into four dimensions:functional experience,economic experience,emotional experience and social experience.Especially,functional experience includes consistency experience,ease to use experience and usefulness experience.Product category and gender significantly affect the Omni-channel shopping behavior;(3)the relationship model between information search channel experience and process loyalty,the relationship model between Omni-channel customer experience and post-purchase loyalty are constructed and empirically tested,which verify the applicability of the relationship of customer experience and customer loyalty under the Omni-channel background.