The quality of physical–electronic hybrid services and its impact on customer loyalty

The hybridization of in-person service and e-service has become increasingly prevalent in the marketplace during the past decade, but its consequences on consumer behavior are still underexplored in academic research. This paper examines the impacts of physical and electronic service quality on customers’ offline and online loyalty. Results from an experimental study suggest that service quality affects customer loyalty within and across channels. In addition, we find cross-channel quality inconsistency of the provider and consumers’ channel use pattern moderate the impact of physical and electronic service quality in different ways. The findings provide implications on customer relationship management for increasingly digitalized service providers.