The purpose of this study is to We wanted to understand the impact on customer trust and pass loyalty, and in theory, we studied it to validate the impact relationship between variables, to provide useful information for efficient store operation of small Japanese restaurants, to provide direction for future development, and to provide desirable development methods for companies to implement. To this end, from May 1, 2021, a survey was conducted for customers using small Japanese restaurants located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province (including Incheon) for six weeks through survey methods. A total of 388 copies were recovered through the survey, and a total of 364 parts were used for empymation analysis, excluding 24 questionnaires that responded insincerely and 24 questionnaires in which the missing questionnaire occurred.
The results of this study are summarized as follows: Hypothesis 1, reliability, type, and responsiveness of small Japanese restaurant services predicted to have a significant effect on the store image appeared to have a significant effect on the quality (+) of the store image, and the higher the perception of reliability, type, and responsiveness of the service quality, the higher the store image, but empathy did not significantly affect the store image. Hypothesis 2, reliability, responsiveness, and empathy for small Japanese restaurant services appeared to have a significant impact on customer trust, and the higher the reliability, responsiveness, and empathy of small Japanese restaurant customers in service quality, the higher the customer confidence, but the more tangible it was, the less significant the impact on customer trust. Hypothesis 3, the store image of a small Japanese restaurant predicted to have a significant impact on customer confidence, the store image of a small Japanese restaurant appeared to have a significant effect on customer confidence, and the higher the store image, the more positively it was predicted to have a positive effect on customer confidence. Hypothesis 4, which predicted that the image of a store in a small Japanese restaurant would have a significant impact on customer loyalty, the store image of a small Japanese restaurant appeared to have a significant influence on customer loyalty, and the higher the store image, the more positively it was predicted to have a positive impact on customer loyalty. Hypothesis 5, which predicted that customer confidence in small Japanese restaurants would have a significant impact on customer loyalty, showed that customer confidence in small Japanese restaurants had a significant impact on customer loyalty, and higher customer trust was predicted to have a positive impact on customer loyalty. Hypothesis 6, which predicted that the quality of small Japanese restaurant services would directly affect customer loyalty, showed that empathy for small Japanese restaurant services directly significantly affected customer loyalty, but reliability, tangibleness, and responsiveness did not directly significantly affect customer loyalty. Therefore, as a result of the mediated effect verification, the reliability, tangibleness, and responsiveness of the small Japanese specialty store service are affecting customer loyalty through the medium of store image and customer trust rather than directly affecting the customer loyalty of customers, so the reliability and tangibleness of the service provided by small Japanese restaurants, and the responsiveness of employees to customers positively influence the store image, and through the image of the store formed, customer loyalty increases, and the store image increases the trust in the customer's store. In addition, the empathy of small Japanese restaurants was predicted to directly positively impact customer loyalty, as well as influence customer loyalty through the medium of customer trust, so that empathy increased customer confidence in customers' stores and increased customer loyalty through this customer trust. Therefore, it is expected that increasing customer loyalty through service quality, store image, and customer trust that meets the expectations of small Japanese specialty store customers should be explored to differentiate only small Japanese restaurants.