The Impacts of Brand Image on Customer Loyalty in Erbil Coffee Shops

Iman Abdulqader Jalal Ali, Maryam Abas Jamil Mohammed, Lana Bashdar Askandar Othman, Frishta Jawhar Sleman Hado,

In the marketing process, the brand is given great importance as it is one of the important factors to attract customers and increase sales and profits of the companies and business institutions. The branding issue has recently received a lot of attention in the Kurdistan Region in general and Erbil in particular. This study aims to identify the impact of brand on customer loyalty in Erbil Cafés, and another objective of the study is to determine the level of relationship between brand characteristics and customer loyalty and how to achieve customer loyalty through branding. To answer the research question, the quantitative method was used and the data were collected through an online survey form and analyzed through the SPSS and the use of Frequency and Correlation Coefficient. The results demonstrate that brand is important for most of the people who visit coffee shops, which makes the majority of visitors visit coffee shops regularly if customer characteristics are taken into account. The study also shows that there is a positive correlation between brand name and customer loyalty (0.427), brand reputation and customer loyalty (0.795), brand quality and customer loyalty (0.785), brand symbolism and customer loyalty (0. 723). Although the relationships are positive and strong, for customers the most influential brand attribute to ensure their loyalty is brand quality, in other words, the quality and type of products and services offered to customers. Thus, it's very important for coffee shops to pay more attention to the quality of their brands. However, the relationship between brands and visitors is not as necessary as it is supposed to be since respondents specified that they visit more than three coffee shops, which indicates that coffee shops in Erbil have not been able to succeed in the branding process and gain customer loyalty as necessary.