اعتماد و تصویر ذهنی از برند: اثرات آن در رضایت مشتری Brand trust and image: effects on customer satisfaction

Introduction Increasing and pervasive technological advancement, particularly in the healthcare sector, makes marketing and brand development essential. Healthcare advancements and economic development are closely linked, and achieving one in the absence the other is not possible (Ramani and Dileep, 2006). Numerous high-quality services and brand variety, and increased customer awareness about service selection, stimulate service providers to either create powerful brands or increase their customer satisfaction. Branding plays a key role in a firm’s services, increasing customer trust (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize service products (Kim et al., 2008), acting to differentiate among competitive products (Motameni and Shahrokhi, 1998) and delivering value to customers. These influencing factors contribute to value-making (Bamert and Wehrli, 2005). Healthcare services are among the most important personalized provisions that consumers experience (Kemp et al., 2014). In response to this growing challenge, managers in pre-eminent healthcare centres, including the Mayo and Cleveland Clinics, Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan-Kettering and Massachusetts General Hospitals enhanced their efforts to reinforce their brands (Thomaselli, 2010). A brand acts as a promise to consumers, implying that staff provide the healthcare required (Kemp et al., 2014). India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are well-established destinations for medical tourists seeking cardiac and orthopedic surgery (Kher, 2006; Macready, 2007). Consequently, developing effective branding strategies is paramount for healthcare managers, especially significant given the changes the industry is facing (Kemp et al., 2014). Owing to deductibles and increasing co-payments, consumers are becoming more selective about the healthcare they receive and more healthcare options make selection possible (Sparer, 2011). New markets to meet increasing demand, therefore, exist (Larkin, 2007).