Determinants of Revisit Intention Among Indonesian Beauty Clinic Customers in Distribution Beauty Clinic Market: The Mediating Role of Trust

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimsto assert trust as an important mediator in the service business. The research topic relatesto service businesses that have low exposure to comparative information and weak consumer positions in terms of law, such as the beauty clinic businesses in Indonesia. Research design, data, and methodology: This study uses explanatory and purposive sampling. A survey was conducted among 268 Indonesians, collected by distribution via Google Forms. The hypotheses were tested using AMOS software. Results: The results indicate that trust did not have a significant role in mediating brand awareness, service quality, and price perception on revisit intention, but only mediated satisfaction. Furthermore, this study discloses the neutralization attitude and dissonance behavior represented by trust mediation. Conclusions: These findings attempt to expand the literature on the role of trust in the service business. However, the beauty clinic businessin Indonesia infers misbehavior. Misbehavior is caused by vulnerable conditionsin which consumers are unable to share their experiences with other consumers. The reason is that the defamation law in Indonesia is often implemented in the wrong direction. This must be corrected so that consumers obtain their rights and create a mutually beneficial relationship between beauty businesses and consumers.

1. Introduction

The sense of attractiveness and beauty has become one of the primary needs of many people. This is caused by increasing growth in the cosmetics industry worldwide. It includes products related to skin care as well as consultations and treatments in beauty clinics. According to Annual Growth of the Global Cosmetics Market from 2004 to 2022 (2020), the global cosmetics industry experienced an average annual growth of 4.08% between 2004 and 2019. In 2018, the global cosmetics market grew by 5.5%, with a value of US$507.8 billion. Countries in the Asia–Pacific region have the highest levels of cosmetics consumption, accounting for 40% of the global market (Value of the Cosmetics Market Worldwide from 2018 to 2025, 2018).

The cosmetics industry in the Asia-Pacific region is dominated by South Korean trendsetters, especially in Indonesia (A Bright Future: South Korea Ranks among the Top 10 Beauty Markets Globally, 2017). A survey by the ZAP Beauty Index (2020) indicated that Indonesian women are greatly affected by beauty trends in South Korea. Distribution The beauty clinic market has experienced a significant increase in line with increasing market demand. Given its high population, Indonesia has a potentially strong beauty market. Therefore, it offers business opportunities for new enterprises including beauty clinics.

Beauty clinics provide services related to beauty treatments, such as skin, hair, and body care, while offering products for purchase (Dicky Novendra & Masykura, 2019). Service experiences are reflected in the atmosphere of dermatologists, employees, and cashiers at the clinic offer (Brakus et al., 2009). Moreover, services at beauty clinics tend to be highly involved in achieving consumers’ expectations (Brakus et al., 2009).

Many considerations arise when choosing certain beauty clinics, such as safety, price, labeling, reputation, and brand trust. Inevitably, products must be well maintained so that they do not cause irritation, swelling, contact dermatitis, redness, skin cancers, or other issues (Utari et al., 2020; Anderson & Weitz, 1989). As Ahn and Kwon (2020) note, a trusted experience plays a role in bringing consumers to future visits. However, Lee et al. (2011) implied that trust does not always matter in convincing consumers to revisit a business because certain conditions that businesses create directly and indirectly in terms of procedural standards, tools used, and limited knowledge sharing can alter trust. Mittendorf (2018) also found that the level of product familiarity affects trust because not all situations are easy to judge explicitly.

Price and awareness have long been used to ensure product value by comparing experience and information (Lien et al., 2015). A price that is lower than consumers’ sacrifice can improve purchase intention (Graciola et al., 2020). In addition, brand awareness greatly influences consumers, directing their behaviour by delineating their advantages through exposure (Neale & Corkindale, 2022). However, based on the findings of Esch et al. (2006), trust is not always influenced by brand awareness when consumers have a low level of knowledge and cannot recognize whether a product can be categorized as best, ordinary or bad. Indeed, when categorizing good or bad business performance, consumers have to compare products or services, experience them first and discuss them with other people.

Both the consistent and inconsistent findings described above emerge in different social exchanges, as stated by Morgan and Hunt (1994) about the rational approach. The social exchange concept is broadly concerned with the transfer of valued psycho-social attributes and commodities (McClintock et al., 1984). Moreover, individual self-interest, needs, and social values as motivations set in motion human action and interaction, especially for a collectivist society such as Indonesia to fulfil consumers’ needs (McClintock et al., 1984). The expectancy disconfirmation concept embraces the social exchange process by explaining that the process of adding value is never fully independent and always depends on others.

Both the consistent and inconsistent findings described above emerge in different social exchanges, as stated by Morgan and Hunt (1994) about the rational approach. The social exchange concept is broadly concerned with the transfer of valued psycho-social attributes and commodities (McClintock et al., 1984). Moreover, individual self-interest, needs, and social values as motivations set in motion human action and interaction, especially for a collectivist society such as Indonesia to fulfil consumers’ needs (McClintock et al., 1984). The expectancy disconfirmation concept embraces the social exchange process by explaining that the process of adding value is never fully independent and always depends on others.

Indonesia’s beauty clinic businesses still have homework related to counterfeit products, fake dermatologists, and illegal beauty clinics in Indonesia today. Moreover, weak protection regarding consumers’ bad experiences in hospitals is still found, where complaining consumers have been sued in criminal and civil courts on defamation charges, even though the police have not examined the case in depth.

According to Utari et al. (2020), consumer protection is still low in Indonesia because the implementation of laws om consumer protection does not apply well. According to Septianto et al. (2020), negative business actions can be formed as distorting consequence, displacement responsibility, and attributing to blame victims that makes the consumers so risk avoidant. Correspondingly, consumers do not have a secure position compared to businesses in many matters, including law (Utari et al., 2020). The objective of this research is to prove the expectancy disconfirmation theory as constructing a mediation relationship of trust is applicable to vulnerable consumers situations, such as limited information and anxiety to share bad experiences.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Trust

Trust is the major element considered in this study. It is defined as a sense of security and mutual fulfilment that is represented by giving value to the partner optimistically (Song et al., 2019), and the presence of trust is able to increase the high-level confidence of the partner not to be betrayed and exploited. It has been operationalized as the feeling of confidence of consumers to say that their choice is the best beauty clinic.

2.2. Revisit Intention

Revisiting intention has a role as a dependent variable that is defined asthe tendency of consumers to visit the same place in order to use a facility and service more than once (Saleem et al., 2017) the formation of customer revisiting cannot be separated from other variables in this research, which is largely based on information gathered from trusted sources and subsequently sets up expectations for service providers, and provides hope for future transactions (Saleem et al., 2017). It has been operationalized as the propensity of consumers to come and order the next treatment in beauty clinics.

2.3. Brand Awareness

Brand awareness refers to a buyer’s ability to identify a brand specification for a purchase (Sürücü et al., 2019). It is usually known as consumers’ ability to recognize and recall a particular product or service (Ročkutė et al., 2018). Recognizing a service refers to a consumer’s understanding or confirmation of the exposure they receive (Surucu et al., 2019). Recalling refers to a consumer’s impression of the experience of their product or service (Moreira & Silva, 2015; Sürücü et al., 2019). Brand awareness has been operationalized as consumers’ ability to assess the specification of product detail through their experience. Therefore, high brand awarenessis usually bound to familiar or branded beauty clinics (Saleem et al., 2017; Hassan et al., 2013).

Brand awareness strengthens links for consumers who have repeatedly consumed a service or product (Ročkutė et al., 2018). It influences revisiting behavior by exploiting high tendencies through product or service knowledge or experience (Rahman et al., 2022). For this reason, consumers who have ever evaluated a service will consider whether they will revisit or switch to other beauty clinics (Rahman et al., 2022). According to Liao et al. (2012), brand awareness has a positive not significant influence on revisiting intention. However, Bojei and Hoo (2012) findings show that brand awareness has a positive and significant effect on revisiting intentions. With this contradiction in mind, this study extends the work of Chi et al. (2009), who argued that brand awareness can lead to revisits by adding trust as a mediator to revisiting intention. This finding was also supported by Fang et al. (2011).

According to expectancy disconfirmation theory, consumers attempt to acquire information from many resources, such as exploring their own experiences, asking people, and reading (Ročkutė et al., 2018). The level of familiarity determines consumer awareness by implying that safe products are always consumed by the majority of people, even though this is not completely true (Mittendorf, 2018). It strengthens brand position in consumers’ minds. Confidence decision as a form of trust is achieved by comparing all exposures and returning to the beauty clinic to continue treatment (Poon & Koay, 2021). In other words, trust enhances the influence of brand awareness on revisit intentions. It is plausible that trust can be mediated by confidently presenting a trustworthy image and facilitating emotions to handle consumers’ willingness to consider revisiting until the intention to revisit appears (Saleem et al., 2017; Park et al., 2012).

H1: Trust partially mediates the relationship between brand awareness and revisiting intentions.

2.4. Satisfaction

Satisfaction is defined as consumers’ evaluation of pleasure and excitement regarding a specific product that has been consumed (Song et al., 2019). It has been operationalized as the match proportion between consumer expectations and experience of beauty clinic services. Satisfaction explains a consumer’s judgement that a beauty center has attempted to meet and exceed customer expectations (Moreira & Silva, 2015). It can be noted that satisfaction is derived from the total service experience. Correspondingly, satisfaction affects the company’s reputation from the consumer’s perspective because it represents a comparison between the service’s promise, the consumer’s expectations, and the real experience (Ali & Bhasin, 2019).

Services that offer pleasure drive future transactions because consumers see the advantage of sustaining pleasurable marketing activities (Saleem et al., 2017). Satisfaction can also be the biggest determinant of performance, which mentions contentment, discontentment, appropriateness, and inappropriateness as affective reactions (Mannan et al., 2019). Previous studies have reported that satisfaction has a positive effect on repeated purchases and revisiting intentions (Saleem et al., 2017; Fang et al., 2011; Lee et al., 2011). However, other studies have suggested that the relationship between satisfaction and revisit intention is not significant (Han & Hyun, 2015; (Hellier et al., 2003). The present study proposes that trust is a mediator of both satisfaction and revisit intention (Chen et al., 2015; Saleem et al., 2017).

Trust provides an affirmative reason for remaining a customer and a negative inhibiting factor related to revisiting intention (Song et al., 2019). Again, trust extends knowledge about the predictive effect of genuine satisfaction (Abubakar et al., 2017). Finally, a sense of trust helps consumers express their pleasure more deeply and be recognized by revisiting it (Saleem et al., 2017).

H2: Trust partially mediates the relationship between satisfaction and revisit intentions.

2.5. Service Quality

Service quality is the outcome of the process in which resources are used and expected (Farooq et al., 2018). Companies attempt to provide high levels of service quality, deliver superior value, and drive differentiation to build positive perceptions of the company (Lee et al., 2011). Service quality is defined operationally as the performance level of a service business refersto knowledge in comparing various beauty clinic performances.

Companies anticipate consumers’ intention to revisit because repeat businesses make it possible to reduce the cost of driving long term customer relationships (Jung et al., 2014). In the service context, revisiting targets repeat consumers who have had previous experience with a company (Abubakar et al., 2017). Service quality can create a positive impression that triggers revisit (Mannan et al., 2019). A positive service experience is generally believed to be a prerequisite for intention to revisit.

Despite the issues described above, Saleem et al. (2017) mentioned that service quality is an individual construct that has been studied as a predictor of purchasing. Prentice and Kadan (2019) noted that service quality was positively significant for revisiting intention. Nonetheless, Kuo et al. (2009) implied that service quality was positively associated with revisit intention. Thus, researchers have added the notion of trust to explore other relationships between service quality and revisit intentions.

According to expectancy disconfirmation theory, trust functions to sustain long-term relationships via the concepts of integrity and reliability (Ahmed et al., 2020). Typically, trust is a form of tolerance for low vulnerabilities associated with service quality (Zehir et al., 2011). This means that there is no opportunistic behavior to be exploited by either party when the company presents a service value close to consumer expectations (Ahmed et al., 2020). The relationship between perceived service quality and perceived trust supports continuance of revisit intentions (Akter et al., 2013).

H3: Trust partially mediates the relationship between service quality and revisit intentions.

2.5. Price Perception

Price perception is the degree to which consumers experience a service and their feelings about the amount they have paid for it (Liu & Lee, 2016). A price can be perceived as reasonable or unreasonable and inexpensive or expensive, and this becomes a consideration in the decision-making process (Han & Hyun, 2015). In operationalization, price perception is defined asthe price offered by the service business that does not provide financial objections. An increase in positive price perception increases revisiting intention because it represents the overall feeling that a purchase makes sense and is financially sound (Liu & Lee, 2016).

This study aimed to examine the role of trust in mediating several variables related to revisiting a beauty clinic. This study focuses on determining the relationships between service quality, price perception, brand awareness, trust, and satisfaction, and a consumer’s revisiting intention. In other words, it investigates ways to improve repeated behaviors through the mediation of trust. Trust was proposed as a mediation variable because it is an included relational benefit that can explain any switching barrier (Ahn & Kwon, 2020). Switching barriers explain why some customers decide to stay or leave their current service providers.

Price perception is one way of satisfying consumers through financial perception (Jeaheng, 2020). Consumers with low switching costs often prefer to choose the same provider many times over those who gather new information (Jeaheng, 2020). Trust helps to increase consumer confidence in service performance. Thus, the accumulation of both confidences has the function of maintaining a long-term relationship. According to Liu and Lee (2016), price perception has a positive and significant influence on revisit intention. However, according to Said (2014) and Jeaheng (2020), price perception has an not significant influence on consumers’ intentions to revisit.

The expectancy disconfirmation approach explains trust in terms of the willingness to rely on an exchange partner and take risks, as well as the belief that the other party will act with a sense of responsibility (Park et al., 2012). Accordingly, risk can be seen through positive price perception, which is recognized by considering the value of a transaction (Hassan et al., 2013). Thus, trust helps ease feelings related to financial performance (Jeaheng, 2020).

H4: Trust partially mediates the relationship between price perception and revisiting intentions.

3. Conceptual Model

Figure 1: Conceptual Model

4. Method

All data for this study were collected through surveys. The study population consisted of consumers of branded beauty clinics in Indonesia. The inclusion criteria were visiting any branded beauty clinic more than twice in the past (visiting ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’) and having visited at least one well-known beauty clinic. In total, 268 respondents completed the questionnaire through Google Forms.

Among the survey respondents, 238 (n = 88.8%) were women and 30 (n =11.2%) were men. Their age ranges were 17–22 years (n = 23; 8.6%), 23–30 years (n = 164; 61.2%), and 31 years or older (n = 81; 30.2%). The number of brands used by consumers was categorized into one brand (n = 188; 70.1%), two brands (n = 68; 25.4%), three brands (n = 11; 4.1%), and four brands (n = 1; 0.4%). Respondents’ frequency of visits consisted of often (n = 163; 60.8%) and sometimes (n = 105; 39.2%). Respondents’ education levels were divided into high school diploma or less (n = 54; 20.1%), undergraduate degree (n = 193; 72%), post-graduate degree (n = 18; 6.7%), and doctorate degree (n = 3; 1.1).

All the variables were measured using 6-point Likert scales. The two items used to measure brand awareness were selected from Bilgin (2018) and Hafez (2018). The five items used to measure satisfaction were selected from Deng et al. (2013) and Cronin Jr et al. (2000). The four items used to measure service quality were selected from Liu and Lee (2016) and, Gholipour Soleimani and Einolahzadeh (2018). The two items used to measure price perception were selected from Jung et al. (2014). Three items were used to measure trust and revisit intentions were selected from Abubakar et al. (2017)

5. Result and Discussion

5.1. Validity and Reliability

The validity of the data was tested using Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin factor loadings, average variance extracted (AVE), and corrected item-total correlation. Table 1 shows that all factor loadings were already grouped into variables and had a value of more than 0.6 (Hair et al., 2014). Moreover, the corrected item correlation or R-calculation is greater than the R-table, which can be considered valid (>0.113). Reliability testing was conducted using Cronbach’s alpha, and all variables fulfilled Cronbach’s alpha standard (>0.7). Thus, Table 1 shows that all of indicators have high accuracy and good suitability in measure variables.

Table 1: Validity and Reliability Tests

Source: Primary data processed, 2023

5.2. Hypothesis Testing

After conducting validity and reliability test in Table 1. Researchers chose to conduct a multicollinearity test because the proposed model had more than two or three independent variables (Hair et al., 2014). Table 2 shows all variance inflation factor (VIF) values under 3–5 and tolerance values of up to 0.01 (Hair et al., 2014). A goodness of fit test was conducted to determine the adequacy of the model, as shown in Table 3. The goodness of fit level can be interpreted as follow. The proposed model is appropriate for the theory and sample (absolute fit indices), the model and baseline model (incremental indices), and the complexity model (parsimony fit indices). Table 3 shows that several terms used for the measurements chi-square, p-value, CMIN/df, GFI, RMSEA, TLI, and CFI—were more than the standard (Hair et al., 2014). While the AGFI result was slightly below the standard, it could still be accepted or identified as having a marginal value (Hair et al., 2014). The results indicated that the model was supported.

Table 2: Multicollinearity Test of Consequence and Mediators

Source: Primary data processed, 2023.

Table 3: Goodness of Fit

Source: Primary data processed, 2023.

The result of the hypothesis testing used Baron and Kenny (1986) principle, where the equations are independent of mediator and mediator to dependent. A variable can be said to be full mediation when the mediator succeeds in mediating independence to dependent variables, and it can be said to be partial mediation when the independent variable already has a direct effect on the dependent variable. Table 4 indicates that the first hypothesis was not supported because brand awareness was not directly related to trust (0.323, p > 0.05). The third hypothesis was not supported because service quality did not influence trust directly, which caused the partial mediation to be not supported (0.601, p >0.05). The fourth hypothesis was not supported because price perception failed to influence trust (0.123, p >0.05) and revisit intention (0.342, p >0.05). Conversely, H2 was supported because all variables have a direct influence on each other (***, p < 0.05).

Table 4: Hypotheses Test

Source: Primary data processed, 2023.

4.3. Implication and Conclusion

These findings attempt to expand the literature on the role of trust in the service business. However, the beauty clinic business in Indonesia suffers from misbehavior, even though the distribution of the beauty clinic market in Indonesia has increased significantly in recent years. Misbehavior is caused by vulnerable conditions in which consumers are unable to share their experiences with other consumers (De Bock & Van Kenhove, 2011). The reason is that the defamation law in Indonesia is often implemented in the wrong direction. As many 316 cases of legal abuse in defamation. The only antecedent that proves the mediation of trust is satisfaction, while brand awareness, service quality, and price perception fail to be mediated.

The first hypothesis was not supported, because brand awareness did not influence trust. This result is similar to that reported by Esch et al. (2006). When consumers are afraid to share their experiences publicly, they cannot easily receive information easily (Abubakar et al., 2017). The low amount of information hinders the belief that their choice is the best choice of consumers. Thus, the relationship built over time does not always indicate transaction complexity of the transaction (Rupprecht et al., 2020).

The second hypothesis was accepted and trust partially mediated the relationship between satisfaction and revisit intention. Consumer rudimentary assessment is determined by any factors that can be interpreted (Hassan et al., 2013). Low information is exposed by consumers regarding other beauty clinics and their experiences. Consumers also have low expectations (Song et al., 2019; Farooq et al., 2018). Thus, they simply build pleasurable emotions based on their own experiences without comparing other people’s experiences or expectations from many other beauty clinics.

The third hypothesis was not supported, because service quality did not significantly influence trust. When consumers cannot explore the completeness, clarity, and accuracy of the service performance, they are confused about setting the best beauty clinic brand in their minds (Saleem et al., 2017). Indeed, comparing service quality is critical for determining the level of business competitive advantage. Lack of exposure blurs consumers’ beliefs.

The fourth hypothesis was also not supported because price perception did not significantly influence trust. According to Riquelme et al. (2019) price can change consumers’ mindset in a negative or positive direction. Moreover, price perception can be realized when consumers perform price comparison evaluations, so they know the level of financial to appreciate a beauty clinic (Liu & Lee, 2016). However, the low level of information sharing between consumers can cause them to become less sensitive to the price of trust and revisit intention.

Based on these results, it can be concluded that expectancy disconfirmation theory (rational approach) cannot cover trust as a mediator for other variables in this context. This study detects deviant behavior in Indonesian beauty clinics. Deviant behavior means that consumers behave unusually due to inconsistencies between their beliefs, attitudes, or values and the situation (Meuthia et al., 2023). For example, consumers revisit beauty clinics even though they are not trustworthy because they only know some beauty clinics based on their own experience. Social learning, which usually occurs in transactions is hindered. In fact, the implementation of defamation law in Indonesia forces the natural perception that is produced by interaction in social media and the public to become deviant.

The result implies business practitioner should be able to formulate the marketing strategy to attract and stimulate revisiting beauty clinic. In term of consumers, consumers really need transparency and objective product information in order to measure the best beauty clinic for their skin as part of brand awareness. One of the impactful ways to create brand awareness can be through clinical test which publishes the substance content and substance function, as we know that Indonesian consumer still have lack of insight about beauty clinic (Elvira et al., 2021). Thus, consumers are hard to identify the most fit beauty clinic for them (Sari & Handayani, 2020).

Furthermore, it shows that price is not to be the main consideration in Indonesia beauty clinic when consumers have difficulty to appreciate the beauty clinic performance (Liu & Lee, 2016). Even though Indonesia beauty clinic industries grow rapidly and offer many opportunities, business practitioner should not focus only to offer good price, but they also need to involve other aspects to motivate consumers in revisiting beauty clinic such as brand trust. It underlines that brand trust is still the main factor to revisit beauty clinic.

Brand trust is appeared by the result of revisit intention and satisfaction. In term of service quality, there is no significant different that are seen contrast among listed beauty clinic that examined. Moreover, it is hard to find negative testimonial because so many cases mention consumers being sued for sharing negative experiences due to lack of consumer protection (Utari et al., 2020). For future research, we suggest to involve E-WOM, consumer literacy, transparency information.

5. Limitation and Suggestion

To the best of authors’ knowledge, there are only limited hypothesis testing studies that discuss vulnerability in consumers’situations due to a lack of information. Then, the researcher chose the basic brand equity variable as the starting point, such as brand awareness, service quality, satisfaction, trust, and revisit intention to avoid the risk that this research can be supported by other credible articles. This result is unpredictable because of the uncommon findings that trust has a significant relationship with other variables. Researchers oppose dissonance theory to drive the hypothesis and indicators because dissonance theory as a neutralization approach is more appropriate for use with consumers. The different approach offers different indicators, which may have different results from this research. Researchers suggest other variables, such as government police, various types of denials, perceived risk, social norms, and others.