THE INFLUENCE OF PRODUCT FEATURES TOWARDS CUSTOMER LOYALTY: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AS A MODERATOR FACTOR

Customer loyalty is a key factor in the survival of business premises. Loyalty helps the business premises facing competition; reduce marketing costs and increase sales and profits. This study aims to identify the effects of product features based on brand, quality and price as indirect predictors in customer loyalty towards business premises model. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on communities of educational institutions that purchase computing products from computer business premises. 295 respondents were selected using combination of purposive sampling technique and systematic random sampling. An analysis of Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the hypothesis model of customer loyalty. The results indicated that the brand, quality and price of the products provide a significant indirect effect on customer loyalty. An analysis of moderating effects using Partial Least Square-Multi Group Analysis (PLS-MGA) found that there are significant differences between novice and experienced customers in relationship of trust and loyalty. Meanwhile other relationships showed no significant difference. In conclusion, the brand, quality and price of the product are indirect predictors that are important for customer loyalty. The moderating effects by customers experiences exist only in relationship between trust and customer loyalty.