Customer Attitudinal Loyalty Research Articles

What Drives the Digital Customer Experience and Customer Loyalty in Mobile Short-Form Video Shopping? Evidence from Douyin (TikTok)

Mobile short-form video (MSFV) shopping represents an emerging method of mobile e-commerce and indicates the future development trend of mobile e-commerce. Unlike other famous mobile commerce applications, MSFV apps provide customers with animated videos which enable them to view product information vividly. This study examines the associations between digital customer experience and customer loyalty based on a human–computer interaction approach. We draw on content quality, relationship quality, and stickiness to investigate customer attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. A total of 796 users who use the leading MSFV app in China were randomly surveyed, among whom 778 users were involved in testing the hypotheses. Our findings indicate that content and relationship quality positively influence customers’ stickiness to MSFV shopping. Moreover, stickiness positively mediates the indirect link between content quality and customer loyalty as well as relationship quality and customer loyalty. This study demonstrates the value of extending the human-computer interaction approach to MSFV shopping and contributes to the existing literature by offering a deeper understanding of customer loyalty in the context of MSFV shopping. In addition, it has some managerial implications for making the most of the MSFV app’s huge potential to help the sustainable growth of mobile e-commerce.

How does employee commitment impact customers' attitudinal loyalty?

PurposeStudies in hospitality and tourism have seldom investigated the role of employee commitment to building customers' attitudinal loyalty. This study examines the impact of employee commitment on customers' attitude-based loyalty. The study contributes to knowledge of how employees' affective attitude (i.e. employee commitment) impacts and mediates the relationships within this model by considering service quality attributes separately in the context of China's Greater Bay Area.Design/methodology/approachUsing a quantitative approach, 664 customers visiting hotels and tourist attractions within three cities of Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai were surveyed. A convenience sampling technique was employed to administer questionnaires within these contexts. A structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS software was used to test the relationships in the proposed model.FindingsThe results suggest that while service quality attributes have a different impact on employee commitment, employee commitment plays a response-predictor-mediator role in the attitudinal loyalty framework. For instance, personal interactions and technical quality are significant predictors of employee commitment. Employee commitment influences customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Moreover, employee commitment fully mediates the relationship between technical quality and customer satisfaction and partially mediates the association between personal interaction and customer satisfaction.Practical implicationsGiven that employee commitment could be derived from personal interaction with customers, hoteliers and destination management organizations should encourage customers through their websites to be responsive to employees by providing constructive feedback on their service delivery. Management of hotels, attractions and destinations need to motivate employees through incentives such as pay raise, bonuses, time-off and paid holidays.Originality/valueThe paper is inimitable in its attempt to extend the customer attitudinal loyalty debate by including employees' attitude (i.e. commitment) in the measurement of customers' attitudinal loyalty in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Customer-to-customer interaction quality, promotion emotion, prevention emotion and attitudinal loyalty in mass services

PurposeThe current study aims to explore the relationships between three kinds of customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction quality and brand loyalty via customer promotion and prevention emotions.Design/methodology/approachIn order to test the model, we gathered self-administered data through an online survey. The relationships were examined using structural equation modelling (SEM).FindingsThe findings show that the influence of customer-to-customer interaction quality on promotion/prevention emotion varies: friend-interaction quality evokes both promotion emotion (high-arousal feelings) and prevention emotion (low-arousal feelings), whereas neighbouring customer-interaction quality elicits promotion emotion, and audience-interaction quality elicits prevention emotion. Moreover, the findings show that enhancing both promotion and prevention emotions is crucial to improve customer attitudinal loyalty in mass service settings, and the strength of the link from promotion emotion to attitudinal loyalty is stronger than that from prevention emotion.Practical implicationsThe authors suggest that marketers should focus on facilitating effective friend- and neighbouring customer-interaction to enhance promotion emotion.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to a stream of research on customer-to-customer interaction by exploring the relative influences of three kinds of customer-to-customer interaction quality on customer attitudinal loyalty via post-consumption emotions.

Performance of direct mail in building customer loyalty in Greek automotive sector during the financial crisis

This paper focuses on the performance of direct mail as a key marketing communication tool in customer retention and a loyalty building instrument during the financial crisis in Greek automotive sector. The major transnational car brand Toyota in Greece is selected to investigate the performance of direct mail in enticing customer loyalty during a financial crisis. Athens and Salonica, the two largest cities in Greece, were chosen as the study locations because they comprise the largest segment of the automotive market and have been the main stage for the conflicts and reactions to the crisis between 2010 and 2015. In partnership with a major research agency and Toyota Hellas, a questionnaire was distributed, and 383 completed questionnaires were returned. The results were analysed through analysis of variance with covariates (ANCOVA) and mediated regression analysis. It was found that direct mail has a direct effect on customer attitudinal loyalty, and behavioural loyalty is dependent on customer satisfaction related to direct mail. This paper provides new insights on the effect of direct mail on customer loyalty during economic crises. Showing the performance and role of direct mail in crisis environment is likely to help managers better understand their customers and enhance loyalty.

Antecedents of attitudinal loyalty in a telecom service sector: the Nigerian case

Purpose – Although the benefits of customer loyalty are well researched and understood, a clear explication of how customer attitudinal loyalty evolves is lacking. Cultural discrepancies across contexts are also argued as restraining the search for universal and dominant antecedents of loyalty. As a result of the high collectivistic ranking of the Nigerian culture, the purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of attitudinal loyalty within the Nigerian telecom market. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on survey data obtained from 138 informants who are experienced users of telecommunication services in Nigeria. The cross-sectional data were examined for internal consistency using Cronbach α internal consistency measure whereas the proposed hypotheses were tested using a multiple regression technique after conducting series of validation tests to ensure that none of the assumptions of regression was violated. Findings – The results indicate that service reliability and customer commitment explains 65 per cent of the total variance in attitudinal loyalty. Additionally, customer commitment was established as a stronger predictor of attitudinal loyalty than service reliability. Research limitations/implications – This study is limited to the extent that it used a convenience sampling approach which may not have allowed for a fully matched profile of the respondents. But the satisfactory fit of the regression model allows for the research to be a basis of a reliable comparison for future studies. Additionally, due to the limited evidence on how attitudinal loyalty evolves in the telecommunication sector, the results that emerged from this research should only be compared cautiously to the findings of previous studies. Practical implications – For users of telecommunication services to become attitudinally loyal, telecom firms must get customers to become committed to their brands and also deliver reliable services. Consequently, capacity building investments that enable reliable services to be delivered and creative pricing structure and information sharing as well as promise fulfilment which attract customers’ commitment are therefore at the core of developing attitudinally loyal customers’ pool. Originality/value – Although studies on customer loyalty are not new, the fact that this paper examined how attitudinal loyalty evolves in a saturated telecommunication context with a high collectivistic cultural ranking makes it a significant contribution to customer loyalty research because of the concentration of most studies in the western markets, the likelihood of disparities across markets influencing the antecedents of the construct and the absence of such research in the Nigerian telecom setting.