服務接觸、關係品質對顧客忠誠度影響之研究──以海運承攬運送業為例

THE IMPACTS OF THE SERVICE ENCOUNTER AND RELATIONSHIP QUALITY ON CUSTOMER ROYALTY IN OCEAN FREIGHT FORWARDER

行銷學者與實務界皆認知到在競爭激烈的情境下，建立好的關係品質以贏得顧客忠誠度的重要性。唯將買賣雙方人際互動的服務接觸納入關係品質模式與顧客忠誠度的研究，較少有人探討，尤其是高度競爭的海運承攬運送業。奠基於之前的研究，本研究建立服務接觸、關係品質與顧客忠誠度之概念性因果架構，嘗試找出影響顧客忠誠度之前因與中介變數。此外，本研究特別將關係品質區分為人員關係品質與企業關係品質，深度探討其對顧客忠誠度影響的差異。本研究以海運承攬運送業為研究對象，並對其主要服務對象臺灣進出口業者進行問卷調查，共回收153 份有效問卷，利用結構方程式進行同步估計特性以辨別多個變數對顧客忠誠度的影響。結果顯示服務接觸經由人員關係品質對企業關係品質有顯著正向影響。人員與企業關係品質同時顯著正向影響顧客忠誠度。值得注意的是企業關係品質對顧客忠誠度的直接效果比人員關係品質強。因而建議海運承攬運送業應重視前線業務人員的服務接觸，以提升人員關係與企業關係品質，達成贏得顧客忠誠度之目標。

Marketing scholars and practitioners have recognized the importance of building good relationship quality to win customer loyalty in a highly competitive environment. However, the factor of service encounter has rarely been incorporated in the causal model of relationship quality and customer loyalty in relative research, especially the ocean freight forwarding industry. Based on previous studies, this study develops a conceptual causal framework of service encounter, relationship quality, and customer loyalty, aiming to identify the antecedents and mediators that affect customer loyalty. In addition, personnel relationship quality and corporate relationship quality are differentiated to investigate their influences on customer loyalty. A total of 153 valid questionnaires were collected for hypotheses testing, and structural equation model was conducted to simultaneously estimate the impacts of multiple variables on customer loyalty. Results show that service encounter has a significant positive effect on corporate relationship quality through personnel relationship quality. So do both variables of personnel and corporate relationship quality on customer loyalty. It is worth noting that the direct effect of corporate relationship quality on customer loyalty is stronger than that of personnel relationship quality. It is thus suggested that ocean freight forwarders should reinforce the service encounter of frontline employees to improve the personnel and corporate relationship and then achieve customer loyalty.