I’ll have the usual: how restaurant brand image, loyalty, and satisfaction keep customers coming back

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study how repeat customers utilize their established overall restaurant brand image (ORBI), overall restaurant loyalty, satisfaction and behavioral intentions (revisit, recommend) to reengage with a casual-dining restaurant brand. Design/methodology/approach The study design consists of a mixed-methods, two-phase research approach that includes both qualitative and quantitative data. First, focus groups and in-depth interviews with adult customers reveal preliminary insights on restaurant dining patterns and familiarity with franchised casual dining restaurants. Second, an online self-administered survey tests the influence of ORBI on repeat customers’ overall restaurant loyalty, satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Findings For repeat customers, ORBI positively predicts loyalty and satisfaction. Loyalty and satisfaction mediate the relationship between ORBI and intentions to recommend, while loyalty alone mediates the relationship between ORBI and intentions to revisit a casual dining restaurant. Practical implications Managers looking to stimulate recommendation intentions can increase ORBI, loyalty or satisfaction among repeat customers; or choose some combination of these three predictors. To improve revisit intentions, managers should first increase loyalty, followed by ORBI. Importantly, management needs to tailor information given to repeat customers differently than other customers. Originality/value This paper provides a first conceptualization of how both loyalty and satisfaction jointly mediate the relationships between ORBI and two behavioral intentions (revisit, recommend). The results show that loyalty plays a significant role in these predictive relationships and is more important than satisfaction for enhancing intentions to revisit a restaurant.