Factors Affecting Customer Loyalty

This chapter covers the background and rationale, statement of the opportunity, purpose, research questions, nature of the study, definition of key terms, the significance of the study, assumptions, and limitations. It also covers the scope, worldview and theoretical foundation depicting the logical path of the research study.

This article is well written with good general flow of thought and easy for the reader to follow. Survey methodology is employed to capture data for quantitative analysis.1

This section of the paper consists of three main parts. First, the research questions that will be addressed, the expected hypotheses and an identification of independent and dependent variables. Second, the supporting literature for the hypotheses is discussed. Third, a conceptualization (definition) and operationalization (measurement) of each independent and dependent variable. Research Questions

Thus, companies seek to strengthen customer loyalty. Brand loyalty is considered to tilt the consumer to purchase the package / product specific brand (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978). Later, Oliver (1997) defined loyalty as "a deeply held commitment to REBUY or repatronize preferred product / service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing activities, which would result in causing switching behavior "(p. 34). This conceptual definition covers two different aspects of loyalty: the behavioral. This is consistent with an integrated conceptual framework proposed by Dick and Basu (1994), that customer loyalty is regarded as a "power relationship between the relative position of the individual and repeat

This study sought to answer three research questions. Although the questions have been presented in previous chapters, they are worth presenting again.

Following the introduction, the authors continue into a review of literature in which the cited sources addressed relevance to the study’s variables. The review of literature consisted mainly of primary and current sources, with no citations preceding the article by five years. It is within this section of the article where the authors chose to further discuss the previous research conducted on the variables and how the variables have

METHODOLOGY: The paper was a qualitative review utilizing mostly correlational methods and containing both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

From an organisations point of view, especially in the short term, it would seem more appropriate to concentrate on behavioural loyalty because this is reflected in sales behaviour. Such behaviour is easily measured compared to components of attitudinal loyalty and matches key managerial performance indicators. Attitudinal measures may also not reflect consumer’s actions when the consumer is confronted with real choice. However, from a longer term view and especially from a CRM viewpoint, it is also vitally important to measure attitudinal loyalty. Attitudinal loyalty is composed of commitment and trust in the brand and/or organisation which will have impacts on sales both in the short and longer term. This type of loyalty is more likely to be an indicator of the potential longer term relationships that will be possible with given customers. Attitudinal loyalty is also likely to have influence on word of mouth and customer advocacy which may lead to indirect impacts on longer term sales or on costs of servicing

The framework suggested by Walker and Avant was used for the analysis described in this research. The method of research included:

The literature review discusses numerous previous studies on the subject matter and references 11 others containing both qualitative and quantitative research giving a broad background into the study. The vast majority of previous studies appear to be of a quantitative nature which adds validity to the alternative qualitative approach chosen for this study.

There are ten scholarly, peer-reviewed research articles selected for the preliminary literature review and they are summarized below. The relevance of the articles and the research findings, research design and methods are included below.

This chapter introduces the objective of the research question, the subject matter, the background, and hypotheses for this quantitative research project.

This study uses empirical, longitudinal, and quantitative study as it’s methodology. The research design was descriptive and

This study was an extension of a study the authors did previously. This goal of this study was to

LITERATURE REVIEW RESEARCH METHODS Conceptual framework RESULT CONCLUSION DISCUSSION Recommendation Limitation of the study REFERENCES