When the recipe is more important than the ingredients, understanding factors affecting customer loyalty in unmanned convenience store using fsQCA

This research explores the role of service innovation, quality of information systems, and trust-based privacy protection in building customer loyalty. Based on information systems success model and the service innovation perspective, this study developed an integrated model that explains these relationships in unmanned convenience store. Data were collected from 603 consumers in China to test the proposed hypotheses. Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) was utilised to analyse the collected data. The findings indicate that service innovation (i.e., product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, and organisational innovation), quality of information systems (i.e., “service quality, system quality, and information quality”), and trust-based privacy protection are key drivers of customer loyalty. The findings indicate that customer loyalty is significantly influenced by service quality, information quality, product innovation, marketing innovation, and trust. Trust is necessary but insufficient factor in developing customer loyalty, whereas service quality and marketing innovation are both necessary and sufficient for establishing customer loyalty. This research provides managers and scholars with meaningful implications for theory and practice.