The influence of service environment and brand equity on gaming customer engagement
Session Title
Session 3-2-D: Case Studies – Engagement
Presentation Type
Event
Location
Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada
Start Date
30-5-2019 11:00 AM
End Date
30-5-2019 12:25 PM
Disciplines
Advertising and Promotion Management | Gaming and Casino Operations Management | Hospitality Administration and Management | Marketing
Abstract
To date, customer engagement research has primarily focused on individual behaviors, while impacts of organizational attributes on customer engagement and its consequences have not received equal attention. The study fills the literature gap by proposing a chain relationship of service environment, customer engagement, impulsive behavior, and customer loyalty in the casino context. Casino service environment and brand equity are conceptualized as an organizational level of constructs to exert cross-level moderating effects on this relationship chain in order to gain insights into gambling behaviours. Two independent surveys were undertaken to examine the proposed cross-level relationships. Results show that casino service environment has significant direct and moderating effects on customer engagement. Impulsive gambling behavior can be driven by customer engagement and prompted by the service environment. Whilst casino brand equity does exert significant moderating effects, only certain loyalty behaviors can be enhanced by the casino brand. The findings not only point to a significant mediating role of impulsive behavior on the customer engagement-loyalty relationship, but also show an indirect effect on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty manifested in revisit intention, positive WOM, willingness to pay more, actual spending, and frequency of visit.
Keywords
customer engagement, impulsive behavior, gambler loyalty, service environment, brand equity, casino
The influence of service environment and brand equity on gaming customer engagement
Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada
To date, customer engagement research has primarily focused on individual behaviors, while impacts of organizational attributes on customer engagement and its consequences have not received equal attention. The study fills the literature gap by proposing a chain relationship of service environment, customer engagement, impulsive behavior, and customer loyalty in the casino context. Casino service environment and brand equity are conceptualized as an organizational level of constructs to exert cross-level moderating effects on this relationship chain in order to gain insights into gambling behaviours. Two independent surveys were undertaken to examine the proposed cross-level relationships. Results show that casino service environment has significant direct and moderating effects on customer engagement. Impulsive gambling behavior can be driven by customer engagement and prompted by the service environment. Whilst casino brand equity does exert significant moderating effects, only certain loyalty behaviors can be enhanced by the casino brand. The findings not only point to a significant mediating role of impulsive behavior on the customer engagement-loyalty relationship, but also show an indirect effect on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty manifested in revisit intention, positive WOM, willingness to pay more, actual spending, and frequency of visit.