The synergetic effect of after sales service, customer satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention on word of mouth

Purpose: Under a dynamic business environment that is seen today, organizations need to adopt the right blend of strategies to attract, retain and maintain customers. Extant marketing literature has shed light on some key roles that after-sale service and the larger customer support system could play in attaining the same. Specifically, this paper aims to attempt to model the linkages between after-sales service, service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and word of mouth (WOM). Design/methodology/approach: A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 280 two-wheeler owners, who had a recent experience of after sales service at their respective authorized service centers, through purposive sampling method. Findings: The findings reveal that both customer loyalty and repurchase intention significantly and positively mediate the relationship between customer satisfaction and word of mouth. This indicates that satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal to the service firms and would spontaneously engage themselves with positive word of mouth. Originality/value: Despite the increasing importance of after-sales service, empirical researches on this subject have been quite limited. This study aims at filling the void in extant literature by examining the inter-relationships between after-sales service, service quality, customer satisfaction and WOM.