The Relationship Between Customer Engagement, Satisfaction, and Loyalty

1. Introduction

In the current dynamic and interactive business environment, ‘customer engagement’ is receiving increasing attention from both business practitioners and academics (Brodie et al., 2011). Moreover, scholars engaged in studying marketing strategies and customer behaviour are focusing on the concept of customer engagement. For example, Verhoef et al. (2010) identify customer engagement as a priority topic and describe the concept as customer behavioural manifestation toward a brand or firm beyond purchase. To this end, Sprott et al. (2009) emphasise that customer engagement plays a key role in enhancing the quality of relationship between the brand and consumers who, in turn, influence the success of the business. Furthermore, customer engagement is a strategic imperative for generating improved corporate performance, including sales growth and superior competitive advantage (Sedley and Perks, 2008). In addition, customer engagement has a clear, direct, and positive association with firm performance (Mittal et al., 2018). Studies have presented several characteristics of customer engagement. Brodie and Hollebeek (2011) highlight that engaged customers exhibit improved empowerment, connection, emotional bonding, trust, and commitment. Enginkaya et al. (2014) describe customer engagement in terms of three critical features: trust, dedication, and reputation.

Banks seem to be most interested in providing customers with mobile banking services in order to improve services as well as enhance their effectiveness and efficiency (Alalwan et al., 2017), especially in Jordan. Jordanian banks have reached an advanced stage of using modern technology to provide mobile banking services to customers (Al-Hawary et al., 2017), and it could become an additional revenue source for banks (Chaouali et al., 2017). Furthermore, it is important for banks to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty in mobile banking, which could be achieved by increasing customers’ trust in the service, providing an excellent experience, and implementing a good strategy for customer engagement. While customer engagement has not received much attention in the context of mobile banking, this research develops a conceptual framework and empirically examines customer engagement to address such aspects as customer engagement, trust, and experience. This framework also explains the impact of customer engagement on customer trust, experience, satisfaction, and loyalty in mobile banking, in which trust and experience are important. A few studies explore the relationship between customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty, and most survey Western countries. Therefore, a key contribution of this research is the evidence it provides on such relationships in developing country setting, particularly the banking industry.

According to Al-Rawashdeh et al. (2016), banks play a pivotal role in an economy’s overall growth and development. Therefore, they should be managed properly to ensure stability, continuity, and growth (Orabi et al., 2016). Effective banking management requires adequate revenue from financial and investment activities and operations (Zyadat, 2016). These requirements drive a state of intense competition and motivate banks to pursue strategies to achieve customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty. This research examines the relationship between customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty in the banking industry, focusing on mobile banking services. It also explores the role of customer experience and trust as mediating variables in the relationship between customer engagement and customer satisfaction and loyalty.