The effects on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by integrating marketing communication and after sale service into the traditional marketing mix model of Umrah travel services in Malaysia
ISSN: 1759-0833
Article publication date: 16 March 2020
Issue publication date: 23 February 2021
Abstract
Purpose
With growing mobility in a globalized world and an estimate of more than 300 million people going on religious pilgrimages every year, various researchers have been focusing on pilgrimage-driven travel services. In this context and within the Islamic religious tradition, the “Umrah” is used as a case study in this paper. In addition, this study also investigated the effects of Umrah SMM (promotion, place, people, product, price, process, physical evidence, marketing communication and after sale service) on customer satisfaction and loyalty toward Umrah travel agents in “Malaysia.”
Design/methodology/approach
Convenience sampling technique at four international airports in “Malaysia” was used to obtain data from Umrah travelers who had used Umrah services at least once. A total of 384 usable questionnaires were collected from this study and the data were analyzed using the partial least square.
Findings
The result indicated that the marketing mix has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty through customer satisfaction both directly and indirectly. This study will be of interest to the Umrah travel industry, for Malaysia and all the other countries, in understanding how marketing mix strategies are essential in maintaining a long-term relationship with customers.
Originality/value
The literature on Umrah travel services revealed that the traditional service marketing mix (SMM) of 7P’s is inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and examine an innovative service marketing mix strategy for “Umrah Service” including marketing communication and after sales service. It investigates the effects of enhanced Umrah SMM on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards Umrah travel agents in “Malaysia”.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the marketing managers who were involved in this study as respondents. The authors would also like to thank Tabung Haji in Malaysia.
Funding This research was funded by the University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.
Author Contributions: For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used: conceptualization, B.O. and A.H.; methodology, B.O; software, Z,M.S; validation, B.O, A.H and N.M.D; formal analysis, B.O. and Z,M.S; investigation, B.O; resources, B.O; data curation, F.A; writing—original draft preparation, B.O; writing—review and editing, A.H and N.M.D; visualization, A.H.; supervision, A.H; project administration, A.H; funding acquisition, Z,M.S. Please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation. Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work reported.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Citation
Othman, B.A., Harun, A., De Almeida, N.M. and Sadq, Z.M. (2021), "The effects on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by integrating marketing communication and after sale service into the traditional marketing mix model of Umrah travel services in Malaysia", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 363-388. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-09-2019-0198
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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