The relative contribution of love and trust towards customer loyalty

Abstract

This study examines the respective role of two constructs, love and trust, as drivers of customer loyalty in a business-to-consumer service context. A review of the psychology and marketing literature suggests prominent roles for both love and trust in relation to long-term interpersonal relationships. The likely interaction between love and trust foreshadowed in prior studies also suggests the need of studying both factors simultaneously. Yet, to the authors' knowledge, the relative contribution of love and trust to loyalty has never been examined in the context of B2C service relationships. This study collected 293 valid consumer self-administered questionnaires in a personal care service setting. Analysis results, using structural equation modelling, show that customer experience of love, and trust, are both significant predictors of customer loyalty. However, love is a stronger driver of loyalty than trust. This study contributes to our understanding of consumers' unspoken needs or wants for love and confirms their need for trust in service encounters, helping frontline employees and managers to perform better in their efforts to generate and maintain customer loyalty. The study also makes a cross-disciplinary contribution to the literature on loyalty, love and trust, in marketing and psychology.