Customer engagement: Myth or need? Empirical evidence from Indonesian airline industry

Abstract

This research aims to examine the interrelationships among service quality, customer satisfaction, customer engagement and customer loyalty. Focus group discussions, and a survey of 250 Indonesian airline passengers in East Java Province, Indonesia, were conducted to satisfy the research objectives. In order to carry out a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between variables, a quantitative approach is used in this study. The methods used to analyse the data are Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to test the model fit and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the hypothesis. The findings of this study indicate customer satisfaction as an antecedent of customer engagement. Furthermore, the results also imply while customer satisfaction consistently influences loyalty, customer engagement is also proven to be an antecedent of loyalty. The results of the empirical analysis are supported by previous studies that suggest customer engagement is a new construct that has an important role to play in enhancing passenger loyalty.