The Impact Of Customer Experience On Service Brand Equity Of Theme Restaurant

With the rising of experience economy, marketing models have undergone profound changes, the customer experience and experiential marketing has attracted the views and interests of many researchers and practitioners, and became the new weapons which enterprises gain the competitive advantages. As a new business mode of tourist catering under the background of experience economy, the theme restaurants have attracted a large number of consumers with their distinctive themes and unique cultural characteristics, and injected the new vigor for the catering market in China.However, with the market growing more competitive, brand building has become an important problems which the theme restaurant enterprises need to solve, and the customer experience has become the key to the brand management.In this paper, theme restaurants in China’s catering market were as the research objects.Further study on the impact of customer experience together with its influencing factors on service brand equity of theme restaurant.Through the reviewing of relevant literature combined with market research and interviews,present the theoretical framework and hypotheses, and propose the study model of the impact of customer experience on the service brand equity of theme restaurants.Utilizing statistics softwares of SPSS15.0and AMOS7.0to analyze data in studies.Though the empirical analysis, conception and hypothesis are verified with the research, the main conclusions are as follows:(1) The relationships between influencing factors of customer experience and customer experience.The influencing factors of customer experience include four factors:quality factor, service factor, environmental factor and cultural factor. Three dimensions of customer experience include sensation experience, emotional experience and social experience. The influencing factors of customer experience has a significant effect on customer experience.The quality factor obviously affects customer’s sensation experience, emotional experience and social experience; The service factor obviously affects customer’s sensation experience and emotional experience; The environmental factor obviously affects customer’s sensation experience,emotional experience and social experience; The cultural factor obviously affects customer’s sensation experience, emotional experience and social experience.(2) The relationships between customer experience and service brand equity.The service brand equity of theme restaurant include brand popularity, brand image and brand communication. Customer experience (sensation experience, emotional experience and social experience) has a significant effect on the dimensions of service brand equity (brand popularity, brand image and brand communication).(3) The relationships between the influencing factors of customer experience and service brand equity.The four factors in influencing factors of customer experience (quality factors, service factors, environmental and cultural factors) have an indirect significant effect on the service brand equity (brand popularity, brand image and brand communication).The research not only enriches the customer experience and service brand equity theory, but also has some guidance on the management practices of enterprises in theme restaurants.