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Introduction
Mobile technology is a part of customers’ daily lives. Customers rely on mobile devices when searching for information and/or purchasing products and services (Ozturk et al., 2016a). The hotel industry is not an exception to the mobile trend (Xiang et al., 2015). Mobile technology transforms operational procedures in the hotel industry (Ozturk et al., 2016a). The mobile platform is expected to play a key role, not only as distribution channels but also as a service platform in strengthening brand loyalty (Anuar et al., 2014). Mobile apps play an important role in fostering customer engagement behavior, which further provides positive effects on brand evaluations, such as brand loyalty (Sprosen, 2014). One of the challenges in using mobile apps is how to capture customers’ attention (Zhao and Balague, 2015). Customers do not automatically engage with a mobile app; rather, customers engage when they want to use it (Bellman et al., 2011).
To sustain the success of business, a hotel should carefully design its service environment, including physical and virtual environments (Lee and Jeong, 2012). With technological advances, the mobile service environment plays a crucial role in developing customers’ experiences, as more customers download the hotel mobile app to book a hotel and request service (Ozturk et al., 2016a). Even though the mobile app serves as an essential platform to foster brand loyalty, scant research investigates how customers’ mobile app design preferences influence their brand loyalty. Liu et al. (2017) call for more research to explore product design strategies. Dube and Helkkula (2015) call for more investigation on the role of mobile environments on customers’ mobile app experiences in the service industry. Thus, it is important to understand how the mobile platform is designed to meet customers’ service environment design preferences when fulfilling their needs, enhancing engagement behavior and promoting brand loyalty.
This study explores relationships among customers’ preferences of the mobile servicescape (hereafter, m-servicescape), evaluation on needs fulfillment, engagement behavior and brand loyalty. In this study, m-servicescape refers to the service environment in a hotel mobile app context. Specifically, this study examines three design preferences of the m-servicescape – aesthetics, functionality and symbolism – that influence customers’ evaluations on needs fulfillment, engagement behaviors and brand loyalty. Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974)...