Impact Customer Loyalty Research Articles

Can Marketing Resources Contribute to Company Performance?

Can Marketing Resources Contribute to Company Performance? This study investigates the relationships between market orientation, innovation resources, reputational resources, customer related capabilities and distribution-based assets, as well as their impact on both market and financial performance. The results indicate that market orientation is indirectly related to a company's market and financial performance through the four other marketing resources. Reputational resources have a positive impact on loyalty, market share and sales volume, while the impact of innovation resources on the market share and sales volume is more indirect and through customer loyalty. While customer-related capabilities significantly impact customer loyalty, their impact on the market share and sales volume can not be confirmed. On the other hand, the distribution-based assets are only weakly related to loyalty, the market share and the sales volume. The general findings indicate that selected marketing resources impact financial performance indirectly through the creation of customer loyalty and directly through the market share and sales volume.

An empirical study on Web-based services and customer loyalty

E-business success is tied to the ability to foster customer loyalty. Businesses that deliver superior value derived from excellent services and quality products are likely to win customer loyalty. This paper examines Web-based services and the effects of three sets of factors: pre-purchase, transaction-related, and post-purchase services on customer loyalty (measured as repeat purchase intention from a given Web-based store) in a business-to-consumer environment. Based on the study's results, pre-purchase services that support search and evaluation of products replete in e-commerce systems have limited effect on customer loyalty. Among transaction-related services, transparency of the billing mechanism positively impacts customer loyalty. Customers shun any hidden costs associated with product acquisition. Post-purchase services consisting of support of order tracking, on-time delivery, and customer support positively influence customer loyalty. These findings imply that Web-based stores need to pay more attention to post-purchase services in their strategy to retain customers. This is what will keep customers satisfied and willing to continue the relationship with a company over the long term.

Customer loyalty and complex services

Based on theory from consumer behavior and cognitive psychology, the purpose of this paper is to discuss and test corporate image and customer satisfaction as two routes to customer loyalty. Based on data from 600 individual customers categorized as having high or low service expertise of three companies within the package tour industry, a conceptual model is proposed and tested empirically using structural equation modeling. The data used in the study are included in The Norwegian Customer Satisfaction Barometer. The paper concludes by claiming that for complex services, corporate image and customer satisfaction are not two separate routes to customer loyalty. Corporate image impacts customer loyalty directly whereas customer satisfaction does not. This finding was consistent with high and low service expertise. These results challenge the disconfirmation paradigm which predicts customer satisfaction as the primary route to customer loyalty. From a managerial perspective, information regarding the relative strength of the two routes is vital with regard to resource allocation in order to improve customer loyalty.