Evaluating Relationships among Brand Experience, Brand Loyalty and Words-of-Mouth in the Context of Smart Phone Handsets in Bangladesh

Abstract

The study was mainly conducted for the purpose of evaluating the relationships among band experience, brand loyalty, and words-of-mouth in the context of smart phone handsets in Bangladesh. The brands considered in this study include iPhone, Xiaomi, and Samsung. The study was confined to the buyers of smart phones currently living in Dhaka city. The sampling technique used was non-probabilistic in nature and the sample size used was seventy-three in number in which 42 respondents were male and 31 respondents were female. The sample was also purposively collected to account for the variations in the levels of education, income, and professions of the respondents. Though the sample size was not significantly large, all major constructs considered in the study (brand experience, brand loyalty, and words-of-mouth communication) were found to be normally distributed since we failed to reject the null hypothesis of assumed normality in the population by conducting both Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk’s test.

The mean value of the brand experience (BE) construct was found to be M=3.56 with a standard deviation of SD=.67, and the confidence interval was found to be within the range of (3.40 to 3.71). The mean value of the brand loyalty (BL) construct was found to be M=3.06 with a standard deviation of SD=.82, and the confidence interval was found to be within the range of (2.87 to 3.25). The mean value of the word-of-mouth (BE) construct was found to be M=3.45 with a standard deviation of SD=.79, and the confidence interval was found to be within the range of (3.27 to 3.64).

All the major constructs, brand experience, brand loyalty, and WOM communications, were found to be positively correlated with one another at 99 percent level of confidence. For the purpose of examining the influence of brand experience (BE) and brand loyalty (BL) on words-of-mouth (WOM), a multiple regression analysis was conducted considering brand experience (BE) and brand loyalty (BL) as the independent variables and words-of-mouth (WOM) as the dependent variable. It was found that the brand experience (BE) and brands loyalty (BL) affect the words-of-mouth (WOM) at 99 percent level of confidence. Here it was also observed that brand experience (BE) affects words-of-mouth (WOM) at 99 percent level of confidence and the brand loyalty (BL) affects words-of-mouth (WOM) also at 99 percent level of confidence. Between brand experience (BE) and brand loyalty (BL), brand experience (beta=.620) is found to contribute more to the variations in words-of-mouth (WOM) due to the higher associated beta value than the brand loyalty (beta=.266).