Nik Kamariah NikMat
Associate Professor, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia.
Poonsook Thatchaopas
Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia.Customer Loyalty towards Student Small and
Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Southern
Thailand
Student SMEs in South Thailand has started since 2003 in the wake
of training business minded operators from schooling era. However,
there are many teething problems in student SME business operation
including lack of customer loyalty, low quality of the
products/services, the loss of customer trust and insufficient word of
mouth promotion. This research is therefore conducted to examine the
predictors and mediators of customer loyalty towards students SME
projects consisting of six variables: 25-item service quality, 5-item
perceived value, 5-item word of mouth, 5-item trust, 5-item customer
satisfaction, and 5-item customer loyalty, measured using 7-point
interval scale. 680 questionnaires were distributed to target customers
whereby 600 completed responses were collected representing 88 per
cent response rate. The finding establishes five direct positive effects to
loyalty: trust, satisfaction, service quality, perceived value and word of
mouth; four direct positive effects to trust: satisfaction, service quality,
perceived value and word of mouth and three direct positive effects to
satisfaction: service quality, perceived value and word of mouth.
Satisfaction and trust are also found to be significant mediators between
proposed linkages. The findings are discussed in the perspective of
Student SME’s loyalty program in Southern Thailand.