An integrated model of customer loyalty: an empirical examination in retailing practice

Abstract

Over the recent decade, practitioners have engaged in creating and maintaining long-term connections with customers and regard customer loyalty as their ultimate goal in developing business strategies because of the increasing market competition. In order to explore the effectiveness of activities designed to enhance customer loyalty, this research presents an integrated model that investigates the two-dimensional structure of the construct of customer loyalty, as well as the antecedents and the consequences of such loyalty. Using the retailing industry as the sample for data collection, the results of an empirical study show that customers’ perceptions of outcome and environmental quality affect attitudinal loyalty, which in turn leads to greater behavioural loyalty. Furthermore, the distribution frequency of print advertisements is positively related to behavioural loyalty, which in turn leads to greater customer expenditure. However, surprisingly, sales promotion is not found to have an effect on behavioural loyalty. The implications of this study are discussed based on the empirical findings.