Customer Experience Management And Loyalty In Healthcare Sector: A Study Of Selected Private Hospitals In Lagos State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Sequel to the emergence of the service economy, marketing, which was known for only physical goods has now widened its scope to cover all areas of services. As a result of the frantic efforts made by service marketers to ensure that services are not merely delivered, but experienced by the consumers, the world economy has witnessed a metamorphosis from a service economy to an experience economy. The healthcare sector is following suit. It is on this premise that this study examined customer experience management and loyalty in the healthcare sector using private hospitals in Lagos State, Nigeria. The primary objectives of this study were to determine the roles of functional, mechanic and humanic clues as well as how customer experience relates to customer satisfaction. The secondary objective was to assess the moderating impact of buyers’ psychological characteristics in the relationship between customer experience management and loyalty. In order to achieve these objectives, five hypotheses were formulated from the research questions raised to guide the study. The study employed survey research design and the data were generated via the combination of structured and unstructured questionnaire. A total of 489 copies of the questionnaire (365 for customers and 124 for healthcare service providers) were retrieved from the selected four private hospitals in Lagos State. Multi-stage sampling techniques were employed in the study. Using the Categorical Regression CATREG analysis, the study found that functional clues have positive influence on repeat purchase actions of customers. Mechanic clues have positive effect on brand insistence, while humanic clues have significant positive effect on switching restraint. Perfect positive relationships exist between customer experience and customer satisfaction and lastly buyers’ psychological characteristics moderate the relationship between customer experience and customer loyalty. Based on these findings, the study recommended, among other things, that health care managers must concentrate on understanding their patients’ needs, desires, cultural attitudes and then design tailored, reliable products, services that will enable them to satisfy those needs and wants. Healthcare managers must ensure that the environment of the healthcare organization is conducive for the patients always; and finally, healthcare managers should have a good grasp of consumer behaviour, so as to help them know their customers, their perceptions, motivations, learning and beliefs/attitudes and how all these will influence their buying behaviour.

Keywords: Customer, Experience, Customer Experience Management, Satisfaction, Buyers’ Psychological Characteristics and Loyalty.