The Role of Mobile Applications in Building Customer Loyalty: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

In an increasingly competitive environment, brands need to retain existing customers and attract potential customers. Brands that employ various promotional activities to develop brand loyalty use different strategies. Especially with the developments in technology and the increase in social media use, mobile applications have become tools for these promotional activities. From this point of view, this study aims to examine the importance of mobile applications in creating customer loyalty. For this purpose, the Starbucks brand, one of the leading coffee chains in the world, was selected. A qualitative research method, semi-structured interviews, was conducted with 20 participants. While selecting the participants, customers who fit the definition of “loyal customer” in the literature were chosen. The question form consisted of two parts. In the first part, information about the participants’ demographic characteristics was collected, and in the second part, questions related to the purpose of this research were asked. The findings of the research were examined under the following themes namely; loyalty drivers of the customers, usage of mobile applications and customer loyalty, and impact of the mobile application on customer loyalty. Loyalty drivers of the customers were examined under three main themes as service-related choices, location of the stores, quality and taste. Besides, under the “Servicerelated choices” theme, internal environment and store atmosphere, and self-service sub-themes were discussed. As a result, it was revealed that service related choices, quality-taste, and location of the stores are the drivers that effect customer loyalty. The mobile applications were not used frequently by the consumers yet, and it was not found as a strong indicator of customer loyalty.