The effect of customer relationship management factors on airline customer satisfaction

Airline industry of Pakistan is facing the issue of high passenger turnover, poor infrastructure, ineffectiveness of operations, poor service quality, increasing rate of flight delays and cancellation that leads to passenger’s diffidence. This study investigates mediating effect of corporate image on the relationship between service
quality, trust, physical environment, social network interaction, relationship through solving customer problems and customer satisfaction in airline industry of Pakistan. The theories of SET and EDT integrates to explain the relationship between CRM factors, corporate image and customer satisfaction. The data was collected from passengers of PIA, SAI and ABQ, in five airports of Pakistan by using a structured questionnaire and 576 visible responses were analyzed. Using PLS-SEM to analyze the data and test hypotheses, the present study shows that relationship between service quality, trust, physical environment and relationship through solving customer problems were significantly related to corporate image
and customer satisfaction. However, the results revealed that social network interaction has shown insignificant relationship with corporate image and customer satisfaction. The findings suggest that mediating effect of corporate image was found significant on the relationship between service quality, trust, physical environment, relationship through solving customer problems and customer satisfaction. Nonetheless, corporate image did not mediate the relationship between social network interaction and customer satisfaction. This study delivers understanding in service marketing area and help airline companies to employ the implementation of role of service quality, customer trust and physical environment, and relationship through solving customer problems as main drivers of customer satisfaction.