Exploring the impact of physical surroundings of the automobile workshops on customer loyalty: With evidence from Sri Lanka

Abstract

The physical environment of service encounters has special ability to influence on consumer behaviours and to create an image towards service businesses. Even though role of physical evidences of service marketing has been addressed by previous researchers in most common service industries, very few researchers have extended their studies towards automobile service providers. Hence, in this study, researchers attempted to investigate on the impact of physical environment on customer loyalty in automobile workshops in Sri Lanka. The physical surroundings were operationalized into three aspects and four hypotheses were formulated to determine the relationship among key constructs in the research model. Survey method was used to gather primary data from selected vehicle users in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Facility interior become most important dimensions of physical arrangements. Finally researchers have emphasized some implications to marketers of automotive service industry to develop their promotion strategies in competitive markets.