Storescape and customer loyalty: employee citizenship behaviour towards customers as a catalyst

Purpose: The purpose of the current paper is to examine the relationship between storescape (retail's physical and social environment factors) and customer loyalty (CL) and how employee citizenship behaviour towards customer (ECB-C) facilitates this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach: This study used a descriptive quantitative, non-experimental research method using a cross-sectional design with a self-administered questionnaire. In total, 415 department store customers in Australia responded to the survey through an online panel provider. 

Findings: Results confirmed the significance of all relationships between physical and social storescape factors, customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty, except the direct effect of physical factors on CL. The findings also highlighted the interaction effect of ECB-C in the relationship between storescape factors, satisfaction and CL, indicating that these effects are stronger at higher levels of ECB-C than lower levels. 

Practical implications: The study provides insights for department store retailers, practitioners and marketing managers into the role of ECB-C in forming and shaping CS and loyalty, especially when there is a lack of storescape effect on CS and loyalty. 

Originality/value: This study extends the consecutive relationship of the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model by adding ECB-C as a moderator. The study employed resource exchange (RE) theory to investigate the direct effect of storescape on CL beyond its indirect effect through organism suggested by the SOR model.