1. Quest International College, Pokhara University, Nepal; vaidya_paudel1285@gmail.com

*             Correspondence: vaidya_paudel1285@gmail.com

Keywords: Expected Benefits, Brand Satisfaction, Customer Participation & Trust

1. INTRODUCTION

When a customer’s idea of how well a brand performs matches up with how well the brand actually performs, we say that the customer is satisfied with the brand. When the customer’s perception of the brand’s performance coincides with the actual performance of the brand, we say that the customer is satisfied with the brand. When a customer leaves your establishment content, they are more likely to do business with you again in the future. As a consequence, more people will talk positively about your company as a result of this. When it comes to a company’s bottom line, it is more beneficial to keep an existing customer than it is to go out and look for a new one. Customers who are pleased with the quality of the services they receive are more likely to make a purchase and help the brand’s reputation [1]. The degree to which a company is engaged with its clientele acts as a primary driver for marketing practises, and numerous resources are utilised in order to increase brand equity [2]. Many businesses, including Audi, BMW, Toyota, and Unilever, have gained insight from this, and as a result, they have implemented numerous changes based on the feedback of their customers [3]. It has been demonstrated that the degree to which a customer is involved in the purchasing process has a positive influence on both the degree to which that customer is satisfied and the degree to which the customer believes they have obtained higher-value services [4]. Managers are under the impression that using consumer engagement may result in a delayed payout due to the rapid increase in demand and the consequences that will follow. This is because of the rapid increase in demand and the consequences that will follow. It can be difficult to create an organisational climate that is welcoming for customer engagement and to analyse the results of these connections (i.e., customer satisfaction with the brand, intention to make future purchases, and loyalty to the brand). The challenge lies in developing an organisational climate that is welcoming and encourages customer participation. In point of fact, it is still difficult to collect feedback from customers and come up with efficient answers to problems that are brought up by customers [5]. It’s not hard to notice how essential brands are to the overall success of various marketing initiatives given their prevalence in everyday life. If a consumer is familiar with a brand, they have certain expectations regarding the level of quality and happiness that the product will provide. Strong brands should ultimately result in larger sales flows [7] because they increase the value of the products they represent [6] and establish the image of the company that produces those goods. [7] This is because strong brands enhance the value of the products they represent. Previous studies have analysed customers’ preferences with regard to online versus offline interactions [8, 9], customer satisfaction and loyalty in online versus offline settings [10], and customer engagement in virtual brand communities [11]. There is no connection between the previous actions of the customer and the level of satisfaction that they have with the brand [11]. There has never been a previous investigation conducted by any academic researcher into the influence of expected utility on brand satisfaction within Nepal’s automotive industry. The findings of this study indicate that the level of participation from customers is directly proportional to their level of satisfaction with the brand.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

The psychological, social-integrative, and indulgent benefits are what contribute to the overall achievement of expected utility. This utility is linked to the capacity to improve one’s own security and status, as well as to build status and increase one’s own self-knowledge [12]. Systems that increase expected utility have been used frequently by managers in order to captivate the devotion of customers and to increase the one-of-a-kind meaning that results from using managers or items. This has been done in an effort to increase the unique meaning that comes about as a result of using managers or items. This has been done in an effort to improve the overall value that consumers derive from utilising the managers or products in their businesses. As a direct result of this, it is anticipated that customer engagement will result in favourable outcomes due to the contribution that is expected from the expected utility [13]. Because of this, expected utility, which is also known as the prospect of a gain (whether it be happiness, financial, emotional, or sentimental gain), is a significant operator for customer engagement due to its ability to support brand energy and increase interface. This is due to the fact that an increased expected utility can lead to an increased interface. As a direct consequence of this, increased stages of the anticipated utility are discovered with the participation of the client [14]. What is known as “participation in brand communities” can be said to exist between an organisation and its clientele in the event that a rapid customer-company relationship is established [15]. Consumer participation, for instance, has the potential to close the gap between a company’s brand promises (including its vision, culture, and image) and the expectations of its stakeholders [16]. This event has been analyzed through the prism of service-dominant logic (S-DL) [17] due to the fundamental shifts in the customer role that emerge as a result of leveraging consumer involvement as an operational element in value production. There appears to be a rise in the level of involvement of customers in the creation of new products and services [18]. This means that the interaction between a company and its customers is no longer viewed as a discrete, time-bound segment but rather as an ongoing process that results in advantageous outcomes. In this sense, businesses have moved away from producing goods for their customers and towards collaborating with those customers [19]. [20] Satisfaction is a complicated concept because it is influenced not only by the consumer’s past, characteristics, and anticipations but also by other stimuli, such as the ease of transaction, the expertise of the sales staff, the variety of available locations, and the availability of special offers. Customer loyalty indicates a commitment to a particular brand rather than to a specific product or service. Customers are more likely to remain loyal to a brand if the performance of that brand is consistent with the performance that they have come to expect from that brand [21]. The customer’s experience with the brand has a positive impact on both the equity of the brand and satisfaction with the brand [22]. The greater the importance a customer places on a supplier’s association commitment, the more faith the customer has in the supplier’s ability to uphold the terms of a contract [23]. The link between a consumer’s level of involvement and participation is stronger when the consumer is in a state of trust [24]. Customer belief is a psychological condition in which a person decides to believe the actions of others and disregard potential hazards [25]. Customer belief can be defined as an individual’s decision to believe the actions of others. There are many different aspects that contribute to the conversion of consumer trust and loyalty through relationship exchange [26].

H1: Expected benefits positively influence customer participation.

H2: Customer trust has an effect on customer participation

H3: Customer participation leads to Brand satisfaction

Figure 01: Conceptual Model

Figure 1 represents the conceptual model adopted and amended. It shows that Expected benefits have a positive impact on Customer participation. Customer trust has a positive impact on customer trust, and Customer participation has a positive impact on Brand satisfaction. Table 2 shows the hypothesis that has been studied and tested in this study.

3. MATERIALS AND METHODS

The research collected data on customer participation, customer trust, brand satisfaction, and expected benefits by using primary data. The setting for the collection of data was Nepal. The population selected for data collection was Automobile owners. We coded the variable as CT for customer trust, BS for brand satisfaction, EB for expected benefits, and CP for customer participation. The questionnaire contained 20 questions. There were 5 questions to describe each variable. The platform for data collection was Google form. The questionnaire was sent to 150 respondents via Email, WhatsApp, and Facebook. To obtain the results, data was run on Adanco 2.0. The duration to hold the research was about 4 months. We measured the correlation coefficient among variables. Also, we measured the effect size by using the reliability of scales suggested by [27]. We measured Cronbach’s alpha (α), Jöreskog’s rho (ρc), Dijkstra-Henseler’s rho (ρA).

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 02: Conceptual Model results

The construct operationalization defines that customer trust predefined reliability is 1.0000 and predefined reliability for expected benefits, customer participation [28], and brand satisfaction is also 1.0000.

Table 01: Construct Operationalization

The Dijkstra-rho Henseler’s (A), Jöreskog’s rho (c), and Cronbach’s alpha  for customer trust are reliable on anticipated advantages, and customer involvement and brand happiness are 95 percent. Expected benefits and customer participation had a substantial association. Customers’ engagement was related to the predicted advantages in a positive way. As seen in Table 02, predicted advantages have a positive impact on consumer engagement.

Table 02: Construct Reliability

The average variance extracted (AVE) for customer trust, expected benefits, customer participation, and brand satisfaction are 0.6414, 0.6530, 0.5775, and 0.7001, respectively, indicating that Customer Trust has an impact on customer participation.

Table 03: Convergent Validity

The convergent reliability has been assessed, as shown in Table # 04 by Fornell-Larcker Criterion.

Table 04: Discriminant Validity: Fornell-Larcker Criterion

The coefficient of determination (R2) measures the amount of variation explained by independent variables by an endogenous variable [29]. R2 values ranging from 0 to 1 are possible. Table 05 displays the R2 values from recent studies.

Table 05: Coefficient of determination (R2)

The path coefficients, as in Table 06, are standardized regression coefficients [30]. Their values are based on the quantification of the impact of an independent variable on a dependent variable.

Table 06: Path Coefficient

The sum of the individual direct and indirect effects is the entire influence (effect) of one variable on another. If the independent variable is raised by one standard deviation [31], the amount of the entire effect is described as the “rise in the dependent variable.” (See Table 07)

Table 07: Total Effects

The correlation between measurements of the same construct has been shown in Table 08.

Table 08: Inter-Construct Correlations

Table 09 is displaying the results of hypothesis testing by examining the values of path coefficients and T-tests and defining the significance levels [32]. The test was used to decide which hypotheses were accepted and which were rejected based on the data collected throughout the investigation.

Table 09: Hypothesis testing

5. CONCLUSIONS

The formula for calculating the effect that customer participation has on brand satisfaction is (= 0.1242), while Cohen’s = 0.0135 [33]. It has been determined that the effect of customer participation on expected utility is equal to (= 0.7362), whereas Cohen’s equals 1.1830. It has been determined that there is a significance level of 95% associated with each of these effects. When it comes to the social media relationships that marketers have with their target audiences, the effects of customer engagement are an essential component [34]. The increasing number of perspectives that are reflected in investments in social media lends credence to the significance of the findings that are presented here [35]. Our findings, which shed light on this topic, highlight how difficult it is to build brand equity through the dynamic interactions that take place between customers and brands. Customers would become more engaged in the life of the brand if brands developed a structured approach across all of the measures in our system to explicitly explain the benefits of engagement to their customers. This approach would cover all of the measures in our system. The results of our research could also be useful to managers in better understanding the significance of implementing strategies that encourage interaction. This would result in an increase in both the size of their customer base and the return on investment of the partnership marketing initiatives that they participate in. Customers’ active involvement in a company’s decision-making process is a powerful tool that can be of assistance to the company in achieving significant results. Businesses that want their customers to have a greater awareness of their brand should make an investment in the development of customer engagement methods that result in shared learning. This is the best way to accomplish this goal. One way in which this can be accomplished is by having conversations among a group of people with the purpose of identifying recurring themes and finding solutions to issues. The bad news is that efficacy can vary, which indicates that managers need to evaluate the different levels of collectivism, different typologies of brand success, and qualities of client involvement. We propose that the emphasis should be placed, in order for these strategies to be more successful, on co-creation activities that give consumers and target customers in countries with a strong sense of collectivism the idea that the product or service they are purchasing has value. This is because co-creation activities give consumers and target customers in countries with a strong sense of collectivism the idea that the product or service they are purchasing has value. As a consequence of this, we are going to concede to our null hypothesis, which declares that increased levels of customer engagement do not lead to increased levels of customer satisfaction. The current world will be improved as a result of the findings of this research paper. Nevertheless, there are always going to be some restrictions. To begin, this research utilised a convenient sample, which may have an impact on the findings. This research was only applicable to the market sector, and not to other sectors such as psychology or information technology, for example. Second, the findings are predicated on the supposition that the individuals chosen as respondents acted responsibly and provided accurate information.

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