Building Brand Equity Through Customer Service: A Study on Restaurant Industry in Malaysia
Abstract
This paper examines the effect of customer service on brand equity of restaurant industry in Malaysian market. Past literature reveals that there are limited researches on this topic, particularly in Asian context. Therefore, the data in this study were collected from a sample of 293 customers of international fast food restaurants in East Coast region of Malaysia using convenience sampling technique. Data collection was done during different times of the day through personal administration of a designed questionnaire to the respondents. The collected data was analysed using structural equation modelling on AMOS 18. The findings indicated that customer service has a significant positive effect on overall brand equity. This study also provides empirical evidence that customer service has a significant positive effect on all of the dimensions of brand equity, namely brand loyalty, brand image, brand preference, and brand leadership. These results build upon the importance of customer service in strengthening brand equity of restaurant industry and should enable the management to make better decisions to build strong competitive advantage.
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