Evaluating quality of experience in food grocery retail and its impact on satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention

• Main Author: Sá, Margarida Neto e
• Publication Date: 2020
• Format: Master thesis
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/21447
• topic: Customer experience; Food retail; Loyalty; Repurchase intention; Satisfaction; Intenção de recompra; Lealdade; Qualidade da experiência; Retalho alimentar; Satisfação

As food retailing customers become more demanding, and the number of service companies increases, the challenge to remain competitive grows. Nowadays, a successful retailer must provide the customer with a memorable shopping experience, embracing the concept of Customer Experience into their service core. Given these circumstances, the present thesis proposes to evaluate the Customer Experience from the customers' perspective for Food Retailers in Portugal, specifically Continente and Lidl. For this purpose, the instrument EXQ presented by Maklan and Klaus (2011), and adjusted later on by Klaus (2015), was used. Another intent is the evaluation of the relationships between Customer Experience, Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Repurchase Intention. This study resourced to an online questionnaire - gathering a total of 311 responses -, and to analytic quantitative methodologies, in order to answer its research question. The data analysis combined descriptive analysis, internal consistency and correlation statistics, hypotheses testing, and linear regressions (simple and multiple). The results suggest that Customer Experience is evaluated at low yet positive values, for these Portuguese retailer chains. The evaluations by the customers concerning Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Repurchase Intention are also moderately positive. When testing the influence of Customer Experience on Repurchase Intention, it was found that there is a positive relational effect, mainly through the mediation occurring in the effects from Satisfaction and from Loyalty. Finally, within the explored context, the greatest pain point (and improvement opportunity) is found within the one-on-one customer-personnel interactions. Specifically, the lack of personal relationships with the staff of the retailer.