How to increase company loyalty: using relational variables and sustainable practices to segment the maritime transport sector

Abstract

Intense competition in goods transportation has highlighted the importance of understanding customers’ interests in order to design successful relationship strategies. This study proposes, through a segmentation approach, to identify customer groups based on their perceptions of sustainable practices and relational variables about their main transport supplier. From a sample of 122 companies, a multiple correspondence analysis was carried out. The results show that there are three groups of customer companies, which correspond to a high, low, and medium relational and sustainability approach. The identified segments are also significantly different in terms of time of operation in the maritime sector, type of activity, size, and age. This proposal provides valuable information at the managerial level on the most influential attributes in the generation of loyalty in the B2B context of the maritime transport sector.