بررسی نام تجاری خدمات : دیدگاه ارزش مشتری

Despite considerable interest in the nature and role of marketing using a service perspective [Vargo S., Lusch R. Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. J Mark 2004; 68 (1): 1–17] there is limited research about branding. Research to date tends to be qualitative [e.g., Berry L. Cultivating service brand equity. J Acad Mark Sci 2000; 28: 128–137; de Chernatony L., Segal-Horn S. The criteria for successful services brands. Eur J Mark 2003; 37 (7/8): 1095–1118] rather than quantitative. This research closes this gap by developing and testing a theory of the influence of the service brand on the customer value–loyalty process. The model includes the traditional influence of brand image plus three additional influences that more fully reflect the broader service perspective (company image, employee trust, and company trust). Using survey data of a sample of 552 airline customers, the analysis shows there is a direct influence of all the aspects of the brand on customers' perceptions of value. In addition brand image, company image and employee trust have a mediated influence on customer value through customers' perceptions of service quality. Finally the analysis shows that a service brand does not have a direct influence on customer loyalty but rather its influence is mediated through customer value. This paper concludes with a discussion of the managerial and research implications.

The majority of the research about brands, until recently, focuses on consumer goods settings and centers around understanding the influences of the awareness and image of the brand (Keller, 1993). However, there is an emerging stream of research about branding, which aligns with the Service Dominant Logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004), that focuses on the value-adding processes leading to creation of the customers' experiences (Berry, 2000 and de Chernatony and Segal-Horn, 2003).Within this perspective the brand plays a broader role where it interfaces not just with end customers but the company, its employees and a network of stakeholders. Research articles (e.g., Padgett and Allen, 1997 and Dall'Olmo Riley and de Chernatony, 2000) and text books (e.g., Kasper et al., 2006, p. 163) refer to this broader perspective of branding as the “service brand.” It is important to note that the “service brand” does not mean the same thing as the branding of services. Rather, it follows the way Vargo and Lusch (2004, p. 2) use the term service marketing; “where the service-centered dominant logic represents a reoriented philosophy that is applicable to all marketing offerings, including those that involve tangible output (goods) and the process of service provision.” Hence the concept of the service brand is integrative where “service” is super-ordinate to the branding of “goods” and/or “services” (Brodie et al., 2006).

The need for research which leads to a better theoretical and practical understanding of branding from a service perspective and how customers' perceptions of the brand influence the customer value–loyalty process motivates this study. From the theoretical framework the study derives and tests a conceptual model. This model includes the traditional aspect of brand image plus three additional aspects of the brand that more fully reflect the broader service brand perspective (company image, employee trust, and company trust). The research shows that each of these plays a critical role and hence provides empirical evidence to support the use of this more general theoretical framework. While all aspects of the brand have a direct influence on customers' perceptions of value, three (brand image, company image and employee trust) also have an indirect influence on customer value through customers' perceptions of service quality. Each brand aspect's influence on perceptions of service quality and customer value differs in importance. Brand image has a stronger influence on service quality (b = 0.35) than customer value (b = 0.18), which is consistent with the findings of Yoo et al. (2000). Similarly, company image also has a stronger influence on service quality (b = 0.40) and a lesser influence on customer value (b = 0.12). This supports the view that a company's image is also a salient intrinsic cue used to ascertain the quality associated with a potential marketing exchange process ( Chen and Dubinsky, 2003, Dawar and Parker, 1994 and Teas and Agarwal, 2000). In contrast, the influence of employee trust on service quality (b = 0.17) is marginally stronger than its influence on customer value (b = 0.10). Finally, while company trust does not have a statistically significant influence on service quality, it has a similar influence on customer value (b = 0.10) to employee trust.