CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AS THE KEY: EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF POSITIVE WORD OF MOUTH SERVICE QUALITY AND PERCEIVED VALUE ON CUSTOMER LOYALTY
The goal of the study is to examine how Word of Mouth (WoM), Service Quality, and Perceived Value positively affect customer loyalty, with customer happiness serving as the mediating variable. This study used a quantitative research design and a survey methodology. It involved 200 respondents who were outpatient patients at a hospital in East Java, with the requirement being that they had used the facility at least twice in the previous year. Partial Least Square (Smart-PLS) version 3.0 was the statistical software utilized to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that good WoM, service quality, perceived value, and customer happiness all positively and significantly influenced customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction is positively and significantly influenced by both good WoM and good service quality. However, perceived value has little impact on customer satisfaction. Positive WoM, Service Quality, and Customer Loyalty are all mediated through customer satisfaction, which plays a positive and substantial part in this process. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived value and customer loyalty is not significantly mediation by customer satisfaction.
positive WoM, service quality, perceived value, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction