HOW TO SATISFY MOBILE APPLICATION USERS AND INCREASE THEIR BRAND EQUITY PERCEPTION? MOBİL UYGULAMA KULLANICILARI NASIL MEMNUN OLUR VE MARKA DEĞERİ ALGILARI NASIL YÜKSELİR (original) (raw)

Nowadays, with the development of technology people's lives have adapted to new situation and individuals have started to carry all the communication, socialization, banking, navigating and many other things they need through applications on their smart phones. The main purpose of this study is to examine the features of the mobile phone applications and the effects of these features on the brand value through users' satisfaction. In this study, the utilitarian benefits, consist of application quality and application utility, hedonic benefits, consist of enjoyment and aesthetics, privacy risk, technicality, and perceived price were determined as the factors assume to have an impact on satisfaction directly, and brand equity correspondingly. All of the concepts used in this study were firstly analyzed with Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and their reliability were measured. Afterwards, the model fit was tested with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and path analysis. Out of 731 respondents, that were usable, 368 were selected for EFA and the remaining 363 were selected for CFA and path analysis, where dataset division was randomly performed with Bernoulli distribution. As a result, there were significant relationships between all concepts except the aesthetic dimension and privacy risk of the application. JEL Classification: M31, C81 Özet Günümüzde teknolojinin gelişmesiyle birlikte insanların hayatları da bu duruma ayak uydurmuş ve bireyler ihtiyaçları olan tüm haberleşme, sosyalleşme, bankacılık, adres bulma ve daha birçok işlemlerini akıllı telefonlarındaki uygulamalar ile gerçekleştirmeye başlamışlardır. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı, kullanıcıların tercih ettikleri mobil telefon uygulamalarında olması gereken özelliklerin neler olduğunu ve bu özelliklerin kullanıcıların memnuniyet derecesi vasıtasıyla uygulamaların marka değerine etkisini incelemektir. Çalışmada kullanıcı memnuniyetini etkilemesi beklenen faydacı değere ait uygulama kalitesi ve uygulama faydası, hedonik değere ait eğlence ve estetik boyutları ile gizlilik riski, * Asst. Prof. Dr., Marmara University, Department of Business Administration, Göztepe Campus, Istanbul, hekizler@marmara.edu.tr, Orcid Id: 0000-0001-5903-713X teknik zorluklar ve algılanan fiyat bağımlı değişkenler olarak belirlenmiştir. Bu kavramların kullanıcı memnuniyeti vasıtasıyla marka sadakati, algılanan kalite, bilinirlik ve birliktelikten oluşan marka değeri üzerindeki etkisi ölçülmüştür. Araştırmada kullanılan kavramların tamamı öncelikle keşfedici faktör analizi ile boyutlarına ayrılmış ve güvenirlikleri ölçülmüştür. Sonrasında ise doğrulayıcı faktör analizi ve yapısal eşitlik modeli kullanılarak modelin uyumluluğu test edilmiş ve kavramların etkileri ortaya çıkarılmıştır. Analizlerde toplam 731 cevaplayıcının anket verileri Bernolli dağılımı ile rassal olarak bölünmüş ve 368 adedi keşfedici faktör analizi, kalan 363 adedi ise doğrulayıcı faktör analizi ve yol analizinde kullanılmıştır. Sonuç olarak ise, uygulamanın estetik boyutu ve gizlilik riski kavramları dışındaki tüm değişkenler arasında anlamlı ilişkiler saptanmıştır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Mobil Uygulamalar, Müşteri Memnuniyeti, Marka Değeri, Yapısal Eşitlik Modeli JEL Sınıflandırması: M31, C81 1.Introduction Over the past decade, there have been enormous developments in information, computer, telecommunications and mobile technologies. By this rapid improvement of the technology and its impact on smart phones, the quality, and quantity of web-based applications which were applicable in smart phones also arisen. Especially, continuous advancements in mobile technologies resulted in the wide spread of smart phones. Consequently, the cause for the emergence and developments in mobile applications is an essential to examine. It is known that the number of newly developed mobile applications is increasing rapidly, and also their usage is increasing since most of the smart phone users are also mobile applications users. 25% of downloaded mobile applications are not being used again and most popular 10% applications have market share of 80%. 1 Unfortunately most of the applications are lack of functionality, purpose, aesthetics and they are low qualified. Despite plenty of applications are created worldwide, their popularity is changing on a country basis. For instance Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google maps, Yandex and some weather applications are very popular in Turkey nowadays. There are also other applications less popular, but still they have considerable amount of users. Mobile phone usage and in parallel with it, mobile application preferences have both intangible-nonproduct-, and tangible-product-perspectives. 2 In other words, there are some factors that influence the satisfaction of users that also affect brand equity of the applications. Stated shortly, mobile applications are essential tools in modern life that is an amenity for humans. Taking all of these into consideration, two main research objectives can be stated. The first one is to examine how and why users decide to download/purchase an application and what the essential factors are for the preferences. The second major aim is to examine how these factors influences brand equity of the applications through users' satisfaction.