Exploring the mediating role of affective and cognitive satisfaction on the effect of service quality on loyalty

This research aims to test the mediating role of both affective and cognitive satisfaction on the effect of service quality on loyalty. Affective satisfaction is represented by Kansei Engineering-based measures and cognitive satisfaction is represented by overall customer satisfaction. The study is based on a survey through personal interviewing and face-to-face questionnaire. There were 102 respondents from 24 hotels ranging from three-star to five-star hotels in Surabaya, Indonesia. There are four latent variables, namely, service quality, overall customer satisfaction, Kansei and loyalty. We found that both overall customer satisfaction and Kansei partially mediate the relationship between service quality and loyalty (approximately 52% mediation effects). In particular, the two mediators, namely, Kansei and overall customer satisfaction, account for 24% and 28% of the effect of service quality on loyalty, respectively. This research complements the previous research by taking into account both cognitive and affective satisfaction as mediators at the same time. It is shown that the two-mediator model fits the data better than using one mediator or no mediator. The generalisation of the results from the study is limited because of the relatively small sample size in a single service setting. Keywords: affective satisfaction; cognitive satisfaction; Kansei Engineering; service quality; loyalt