The Impact of Customer Experience on Relationship Quality with Travel Agencies in a Multichannel Environment

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the impact of the customer experience (concept of THINK, FEEL, SENSE, ACT and RELATE developed by Schmitt in 1999) on relationship quality with travel agencies in a multichannel environment ( in-store and online). A self-administered Web questionnaire was answered by 289 adult respondents from a panel of individuals residing in Canada, not working for a travel agency and having visited both the physical agency (in-store) and website (online) of the travel agency with which they generally conducted business. Results were analyzed using structural modeling techniques (EQS 6.2). For both the in-store and online contexts, results pointed to the THINK and FEEL dimensions as the key factors positively impacting relationship quality. The ACT (in-store) and SENSE (online) dimensions were also found to influence relationship quality positively.