“Antecedents and consequences of customer engagement: A case study of Saudi airline industry”

The main aim of this study is to examine the antecedents and consequences of consumer engagement in the Saudi airline industry. In total, 403 usable responses were collected using an electronic survey. The study respondents include airline travelers who are living in Saudi Arabia. The survey data were examined using structural equation modeling (SEM) to verify the theoretical model. The major study findings suggest that a positive correlation is found between online brand experience, brand love, and customer engagement. Moreover, customer engagement is positively associated with repatronage intention. In addition, the moderating results show that service quality has a moderating influence on the relationship between customer engagement and repatronage intention. As a consequence, the findings indicate the existence of service quality and its role in determining customer behavior intentions. This study also offers a great understanding of the interaction between the important factors. Thus, they may be utilized as a guideline for managing air traveling and improving airline sales in the country.


INTRODUCTION
The topic of customer engagement has attracted interest over the past several decades, especially in the marketing literature, wherein researchers and practitioners have intensively explored this concept (van Doorn et al., 2010; Prentice et al., 2019). A key focus has been the reactions to customer engagement of the airline industry as observed in consumer behavior, as many customers have a strong and highly interactive presence on both Facebook and Twitter (Dijkmans et al., 2015). Since travelers are increasingly required to use the social media of airlines, the use of social media platforms by airlines is expected to increase in the coming years (Seo & Park, 2018). Sharing and posting comments on brand social media pages are behavioral expressions of consumer engagement (van Doorn et al., 2010) and are essential to the overall social media engagement plan of the brand (Kabadayi & Price, 2014).
The approaches of social media studies in the airline context have varied but include, for example, customer polls (Bigne et al., 2018;Dijkmans et al., 2015;Seo & Park, 2018), airline manager interviews (Parveen et al., 2015), and content analysis and web content or text mining (Bygstad & Presthus, 2013; Leung et al., 2013;Grančay, 2014). In the industry, various airline firms expose consumers to multiple products as stimuli in marketing communications before those consumers complete purchase actions. Therefore, an airline must offer a unique brand experience to survive in such a competitive climate.
Studies on the airline industry sector have illustrated that airlines use social media for several reasons, including customer support, brand building and consumer engagement, and the provision of specific offers and promotions (Gal-Tzur et al., 2014;Grančay, 2014;Parveen et al., 2015).
This study explores the customer-brand relationship, as determined by the online brand experience and brand love, and the service offerings of a company influencing consumer engagement with the brand and its related company in the airline industry. Supporting brand connections with airlines and specific service characteristics is increasingly crucial given the importance of the emotional loyalty of passengers to airline firms and the demand for service attributes. Given this, this paper explores how the relationship of customers with an airline and their understanding of the level of service that it provides impact their enjoyment of the airline brand as well as their communication behavior. To this end, it investigates the role of service quality in determining customer engagement and the functional consequences for repatronage intention, which to date have remained nebulous, in line with these trends. The findings can contribute insights regarding customer engagement in terms of the antecedents and consequences of how consumer-and firm-based factors influence customer engagement with brands online. The study aims to clarify the links between the factors and assess the moderating role of service quality. On the foundation of this reasoning, the following questions are addressed: 1) How online brand experience and brand love influence customer engagement in the airline industry context?
2) Does service quality have a moderating role in enhancing customer engagement and repatronage intention in the airline services sector?
The following section conducts an applicable literature review and generates hypotheses. Subsequently, the methodology for evaluating these hypotheses is outlined, and the results are presented. Then, the paper presents a discussion of the findings and finally, the study will be summarized in the conclusion section. The online brand experience describes a person's inner emotional response to the online brand interaction (Morgan-Thomas and Veloutsou, 2013). In general, the customer experiences of retailers vary across customer gathering points. Brand love, which represents the emotional bond within every consumer experience, is dependent on a customer appreciation for and degree of positive association with a retailer and its brand (Fullerton, 2003;Khan et al., 2016). According to Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), brand love reflects the extent of an enthusiastic emotional connection to a certain trademark for a satisfied customer. Evidence supports that brand love improves the correlation between the retail brand experience and willingness to pay a higher price as well as the correlation between the latter and word-of-mouth interactions (Nikhashemi et  Brand love is characterized by an enthusiastic client promise to the validation of a specific brand name or trademark (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006). Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) and Huber et al. (2015) argued that brand love is the result of a longtime association with a brand that encourages a compelling segment of buyers to incorporate the brand image into their own identity. In the marketing sector, customer engagement is frequently defined as an enthusiastic, intellectual, and social custom- ers who were drawn in by self-expressive brands through the Facebook "like" and found a particularly high level of brand love, and the consequence was a positive connection between "liked" self-expressive brands and brand love.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
In marketing, customer engagement is often defined as enthusiastic, psychological, and social en- Nevertheless, by recognizing the elements that affect customer engagement with airline social applications to enhance repatronage intention, air-lines can provide optimal services. This consideration is crucial for understanding consumer interest in the airline brand experience in social media research. Since the airline industry is extremely competitive, companies can only achieve continued success if they focus on re-purchase intention in their social media use. Farooq et al. (2018), and Trischler and Lohmann (2018) evidenced customer patterns that reflect an appreciation for the value and an interest in advanced service quality, especially in the airline industry. It is widely acknowledged that service quality is an indicator of customer fulfillment and social standards, which are advantageous for businesses (Prentice, 2013). Andotra et al. (2008) discovered that service quality can be viewed as a "competitive marketing technique" in the airline industry that combines a focus on customers, innovation in facilities, growth, and a propensity to increase "service excellence." Islam et al. (2018) considered the quality of service as a moderator, and the focus is not widely put on the impact of customer engagement on service quality; thus, additional investigations are needed.
Customers generally agree that comfortable and clean seats are a key offering of every airline (Chen & Chang, 2005;Liou & Tzeng, 2007). It was experimentally argued that providing support to resolve passenger complaints is critical for the airline industry. Parasuraman et al. (1985) advised that analyses of results and perceptions should examine the quality of service. Cronin et al. (2000) suggested that the success of customer service in each assistance consultation decides the quality of the company management. This methodology has been extensively referred to and discussed. In response to Prentice et al. (2019), this study argues that the quality of service mediates the impacts of brand experience and brand love on consumer engagement instead of explicitly influencing the outcome variable. Service quality increases consumer participation in the brand through each encounter, which eventually leads to an enthusiastic connection (for example, brand love for an airline on social media) to the brand and, subsequently, the communication practices underlying purchasing, mentions, and electronic word-of-mouth. Individuals conduct a comparative cost advantage-reward analysis to determine their expected exchange-derived value based on the principle of social exchange (Priporas et al., 2017).
The aim of this study is to examine the correlation between online brand experience, brand love, customer engagement, and repatronage intention in the Saudi airline sector.
Based on the literature review the hypotheses can be developed as follows: H1: Online brand experience has a positive impact on customer engagement.
H2: Online brand experience has a positive impact on brand love.
H3: Brand love has a positive impact on customer engagement.
H4: Customer engagement has a positive impact on repatronage intention.
H5: Service quality moderates the relationship between customer engagement and repatronage intention.
Based on the presented data, this paper tests the hypotheses to evaluate how the service quality (in terms of how customers experience the flight and perceive the airline administration) is described.
The study conveys future customer engagement commitments and reflects on the online brand experience by presenting substantial information about how shopper-and firm-based variables influence consumers to reference the online platform of a brand. However, Figure 1 shows the elaborated framework.

METHODOLOGY
This study highlights the importance of online brand experience and brand love as antecedents of customer engagement and subsequent repatronage intention, with service quality as a moderator. To verify the proposed model, a quantitative approach was adopted. The research instrument for the study was designed regarding items from validated scales for measuring online brand experience, brand love, customer engagement, repatronage intention, and service quality. The study focuses on social media use in the airline industry. The selection criteria required that respondents must be a follower of a fan page for a Saudi airline brand on social media. Surveys were randomly conducted through an online review from June to September 2020 among customers who had traveled with Saudi airlines. Of the 449 received surveys, 403 reactions were deemed substantial, which reflects an 89.76% reaction rate. The 46 (10.24%) omitted responses were found to be of no utilization to the investigation because the respondents answered the restricted question regarding language by selecting the Arabic language, which directed them to the end of the survey. Since the survey was designed in English, only answers selecting the English language were accepted.
To suit the context of the study, the existing scales were slightly modified. The questionnaire consisted of a distinct, randomly assigned sequence of the data collection items with a seven-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (7). This seven-point scale supported a more accurate result from the questionnaire. To reach the maximum scope of travelers, a restricted question asked the airline customers to select an airline website or social media mobile Brand love was measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from "very much" to "not at all." Other constructs were measured on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from "very strongly disagree" to "very strongly agree". In addition, the Cronbach's alpha values were analyzed (Appendix A).
The primary data for this study were collected from June to September 2020. Email and social media channels were used to contact potential study participants and distribute the pre-tested questionnaire. Initially, the four most heavily used social media platforms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were selected according to their reported penetration levels by the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, 2020). Facebook and Twitter recorded the highest numbers of social media users in the kingdom, whereas YouTube reported a high view rate. A purposeful sampling method was employed to recruit participants for the study. The purpose of the study was clearly defined on the first page of the survey instrument, and it was ensured that the Saudis and non-Saudis participated and engaged in an airline social media. Data were obtained from both Saudi and non-Saudi passengers who had traveled with Saudi airline brands. Before administering the questionnaire, a pilot assessment was performed with 10 travelers to ensure that the language of the questionnaire was consistent and well understood. As Table 1 indicates, the participants reported a variety of backgrounds and educational levels. The majority of the participants (40.20%) were between 31 and 40 years of age, which suggests that middle-aged individuals were more independent in their travel.
Of 403 participants, 55.58% were male, and 44.42% were female. In addition, approximately 31.02% had at least a bachelor's degree. Finally, 29% of participants were following their airline Twitter account.   Figure 2 indicates the AMOS results.

RESULTS
It is imperative to evaluate measurement models in terms of reliability and validity to determine whether they represent the topics of interest for the study (Hair et al., 2011). Reliability is the degree to which the test yields consistent outcomes under the same conditions, while validity refers to the extent to which a series of tests collectively captures what is to be measured (Hair et al., 2016). The reliability of each indicator was assessed by its load factor in this study; Appendix A presents confirmatory factor analysis. The structural reliability coefficient and Cronbach's alpha were then tested to determine the reliability of the building the construct. The average variance extracted (AVE) was also evaluated to assess the converging validity of the constructs ( Table 2). The Heterotrait-Monotrait HTMT methodology was applied for the assessment of the discriminatory validity; the results are displayed in Table 3 (Henseler et al., 2014). A cut-off value of HTMT < 0.9 was suggested to validate the discriminator. Discriminatory validity was established, as the majority of values are below the critical value of 0.9. In addition, most AVE scores met the cutoff value of 0.5, which demonstrates strong convergent validity of all constructs (Henseler et al., 2009). Finally, no multicollinearity problems were noted, as the construction variance inflation factors (VIFs) range from 1.047 to 2.06 (Appendix A).    To test the moderating role of service quality, a two-group model was utilized, as it could determine whether service quality moderates the effect of customer engagement on repatronage intention. The results demonstrate that service quality has a moderating role in the link between customer engagement and repatronage intention (Table  4). Specifically, the association between customer engagement and repatronage intention is stronger for the high service quality group. Therefore, the results confirm that service quality exists and is part of the process of shaping consumer behavior intentions.
All hypothesized relationships in this study were supported. Brand love (β = 0.75***) and the online brand experience (β = 0.11**) were significant and positive predictors of customer engagement that had a strong influence. Similarly, the online brand experience positively and significantly impacted brand love (β = 0.39***). Finally, the strongest relationship was evident between customer engagement and repatronage intention, with the former having a positive and significant influence on the latter (β = 0.63***).
Regarding the explained variances, the R² values indicate that 58%, 43%, and 67.5% of the customer engagement, repatronage intention, and sustained usage, respectively, were caused by the proposed predictors (R 2 for the model is 43%). Additionally, to measure the conceptual model's predictive validity, a blindfold procedure was performed . This procedure produced cross-validated redundancy (Stone-Geisser's Q2) values that were greater than zero for the endogenous construct (Q2 perceived value = 0.381; Q2 advocacy intention = 0.468; Q2 sustained usage = 0.409), which supports the model's predictive relevance. The study tested the predictive validity of the structural model following the Stone-Geisser Q2. According to Roldán and Sánchez-Franco (2012), to examine the predictive validity of the research model, the cross-validated construct redundancy Q2 is necessary. A Q2 of greater than zero implies that the model has predictive validity. In the main AMOS model, the Q2 was 0.32 for brand love, 0.54 for customer engagement, and 0.39 for repatronage intention. These results are positive and therefore satisfy this condition.
To evaluate H5, a two-group model was utilized to determine whether service quality moderates the effect of customer engagement on repatronage intention. The formula of Chin et al. (2003) was applied to assess the variances in path coefficients between subgroups. The association between customer engagement and repatronage intention was stronger for the high service quality group. The results confirm that service quality exists and is part of the process of shaping consumer behavior intention, as they suggest a moderating impact of service quality on the relationship between customer engagement and repatronage intention. To explain the significant results of the structural model path coefficients, Table 5 below shows the hypotheses' testing results.

DISCUSSION
This paper examines the relationships among brand love, online brand experience, customer engagement, and repatronage intention, and the moderating role of service quality in the airline industry, which poses a range of interesting implications. Initially, the results empirically confirmed that enhanced brand love is vital to improve the online brand experience through future contributions of customers to the brand (Islam et al., 2019;Prentice et al., 2019). For the airline industry, the results of the present study indicate that customer engagement, as a critical predictor of repatronage intention, is fostered by the provision of superior service quality. Thus, the findings imply that marketers should concentrate on delivering a superior online brand experience -rather than relying on practical service attributes -to generate brand love (Islam et al., 2019). In particular, enjoyable online interactions on social networking sites reinforce customer loyalty to a brand and encourage more beneficial brand experiences by creating and sustaining positive feelings, memories, and emotional states among consumers (Yu et al., 2020).
The study results indicate an important moderating function of service efficiency in the proposed associations in the model. Accordingly, they reflect that customers differ in their ways of thinking. It is, therefore, necessary for scholars and companies to recognize gaps in service quality when analyzing and opting for active participation in social networks. This study concerns the level of service quality as assessed by travelers, which performs a moderating role in determining customer engagement and repatronage intention. This suggestion is predicated on the assumption of Prentice et al.
(2020) that customer-based variables are more reflective of the customer's desire to interact with a brand on an online platform. To encourage consumers to respond favorably and connect with the brand on a social networking platform, a company should offer premium support. Many similar airlines and flights can operate safe transport to their target location. According to Prentice et al. (2019), there was no significant moderation of the effects of the in-flight service on customer engagement. This result suggests that the relationship of flight attendants with travelers forms their experience with the airline and their emotional attachment.
Airlines should focus on engaging customers to improve their experiences. However, the confirmatory result suggests that the service provided by the flight attendant has a direct effect on the involvement of the passenger. To engage customers, the focus should be on enhancing the customer experience. However, the confirmatory finding indicates that the service rendered by flight attendants has a clear impact on customer participation. Many flight service components often reveal major consequences of moderation across various airlines. This result, along with Prentice and Wong (2015), indicates that customer support is important in engaging consumers and improving consumer satisfaction. Following customer engagement, it is relevant to concentrate on service quality to boost the consumer brand experience and revisit intention (Vivek et al., 2012).

CONCLUSION
The adaptability of the airline industry to the rapidly changing market climate, and perhaps even the powerful approach and methods of digital marketing, such as the use of the platforms and online communication networks, have resulted in sustainable and resilient developments. This study examines customer engagement antecedent and consequences among brand love, online brand experience, and repatronage intention, and the moderating role of service quality in the airline industry, which poses a range of interesting implications. The results empirically confirmed that brand love is a vital tool to improve the online brand experience through future contributions of customers to the brand. For the airline industry, the results of the present study indicate that customer engagement, as a critical predictor of repatronage intention, is fostered by the provision of superior service quality. Thus, the findings imply that marketers should concentrate on delivering a superior online brand experience -rather than relying on practical service attributes -to generate brand love. In particular, enjoyable online interactions on social networking sites reinforce customer loyalty to a brand and encourage more beneficial brand experiences by creating and sustaining positive feelings, memories, and emotional states among consumers. Moreover, the study contributes to the findings of customer engagement indicating a potential line of future studies based on the notion that service quality is critical in improving customer satisfaction. While this paper focused on the relationship between online brand experience, brand love, customer engagement, service quality, and repatronage intention, further studies could employ different arrangements. The implications of the study support policymakers, investors, customers, and academics. Another implication that suggested by Shaikh et al. (2020) in mobile banking study which could be relevant to our study, when the airline industry apply voice or virtual assistant technology on App as features it would improve customers online experience and engagement.