Loyalitas pelanggan merupakan suatu hal yang sangat penting dalam sebuah industri baik itu produk maupun jasa. Jika pelanggan sudah loyal pada perusahaan atau organisasi tertentu maka pelanggan akan terus menggunakan produk atau jasa dari perusahaan tersebut. Industri forwarder merupakan salah satu industri yang bergerak di bidang jasa. Forwarder adalah penyedia jasa logistik pihak ketiga (third party logistics) yang melakukan pengiriman barang melalui beberapa mode transportasi yang salah satunya adalah melalui udara atau lebih sering disebut dengan istilah airfreight.
Dalam industri airfreight forwarder, loyalitas pelanggan sangatlah penting, karena dalam persaingan di dunia airfreight forwarder jarang di temukan pelanggan yang hanya loyal pada satu perusahaan saja. Pelanggan umumnya berpindah-pindah dari satu perusahaan forwarder ke perusahan forwarder lainnnya. Krisis finansial global yang terjadi saat ini, sedikit banyak juga mempengaruhi jumlah kegiatan ekspor impor yang melibatkan industri forwarder didalamnya. Mempertahankan pelanggan yang sudah ada agar tetap setia tentunya akan menjadi penting sekali bagi pelaku industri forwarder.
Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan tujuan untuk mengetahui faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi loyalitas pelanggan pada industi airfreight forwarder sehingga dapat dijadikan dasar untuk perbaikan demi meningkatkan loyalitas pelanggan.
Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode structural equation modeling (SEM), dimana diajukan enam konstruk yang dihipotesiskan memiliki pengaruh terhadap loyalitas pelanggan. Konstruk-konstruk tersebut adalah perceived value, perceived quality, customer satisfaction, trust, customer complaint, dan image. Setelah pengujian dengan bantuan perangkat lunak AMOS, didapat hasil bahwa terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara konstruk-konstruk tersebut dengan loyalitas. Dengan demikian dapat disimpulkan bahwa ternyata loyalitas pelanggan dalam industri airfreight forwarder dipengaruhi oleh perceived value, perceived quality, customer satisfaction, trust, customer complaint dan image baik secara langsung maupun tidak langsung.
Customer Loyalty is an important thing in industry both product and services. If customer become loyal to one company or organization then those customer will keep using the company?s product and services. Forwarder is a third party logistics services provider which shipped goods using several transportation mode which one of them is through airfreight.
In airfreight forwarder industry, customer loyalty has also become such an important thing to survive, s ince in airfreight forwarder competition, it has been so rarely found a customer who has a loyalty only to one company. Commonly, customer moved from one to another company. The global financial crisis that currently happen has also impact the export and import activity which involved the forwarder inside. In this kind of situation, keep the existing customer to be loyal would be very important for the forwarder.
This research's aim is to find out the factors that affect customer loyalty in airfreight forwarder industry, this factor will be the basis to do improvement to create customer loyalty.
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used in this research as the tools where there were six construct proposed and hypoteses to have effect to customer loyalty. Those construct are perceived value, perceived quality, customer satisfaction, trust, customer complaint and image. Having tested the model by using AMOS software, the result shows that there are significant relationships between the proposed construct and loyalty. This lead to a conclusion that in fact customer loyalty in airfreight forwarder industry is affected by perceived value, perceived quality, customer satisfaction, trust, customer complaint and image, both directly and indirectly.
