Effect of the customer experience on satisfaction with smartphones: Assessing smart satisfaction index with partial least squares

With the rapid diffusion of a wide variety of smartphones, quality issues have become central to consumers. While customer satisfaction of most goods and services has been well researched, little research seems to exist on satisfaction and loyalty with respect to advanced mobile services, such as smartphones. This study applied a customer satisfaction index (CSI) model to the smart mobile sector in order to derive a smart-service CSI (SCSI). The SCSI model and its hypotheses were then tested using partial least square analysis and index calculation. The findings showed that the perceived value and customer satisfaction are key variables mediating the relationship between quality and customer loyalty. The proposed model demonstrated strong explanatory power, with satisfactory reliability and validity. The SCSI model establishes a foundation for future smart service categories on the basis of providing a powerful tool for quality assessment. The results of this study provide useful insights for the telecom industry and policymakers, for the forging of effective policies and competitive strategies. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.