Title: Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty to electronic home appliances in Bangladesh: The contingent role of brand trust

Abstract

In Bangladesh, customers are accustomed to electronic home appliances due to family structure, higher income levels, and technological affiliation. The huge customer base, increasing demand, emerging markets, acute competition among the brands, and changing customer behaviour are remarkable; nevertheless, customer satisfaction and loyalty are not static, and are somewhat changeable. The lack of extensive research on satisfaction and loyalty in this context is the motivation for this research. This study attempted to inspect the role of customer satisfaction and its predictors on brand loyalty and the role of brand trust in these relationships. The study was conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with 486 respondents. The structured survey questionnaires were selected using the shopping mall-intercept sampling technique, where measurements were adapted from the literature. Elementary analyses were done using SPSS, and hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM. The findings reveal that customer satisfaction fully mediates the impacts of the product’s functional quality, customer perceived value, and customer-brand experience on brand loyalty; and various levels of brand trust signify customer satisfaction and loyalty relationship. The research framework was supported by the stimulus– organism–response theory, where product quality, customer value, and experience are successful stimuli, and satisfaction and brand trust are strong organisms. Marketing stimuli expose loyalty to the brand through the satisfaction and trust organism. The practicing managers might concentrate on satisfaction by developing home appliances to make them loyal to the brand and build customer trust on that brand to strengthen this relationship. The findings signify contextual and methodological contribution.