Innovation as a key to strengthen the effect of relationship benefits on loyalty in retailing

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Eugenia Ruiz-Molina ◽  
Irene Gil-Saura ◽  
David Servera-Francés
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Store Loyalty ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Point Of Sale ◽  
Treatment Benefits ◽  
Relationship Benefits ◽  
Moderating Role

Purpose This work aims to attempt an in-depth study of the link between relationship benefits and store loyalty, examining the moderating role of the retailer’s degree of innovation in these relations. Design/methodology/approach An equations model has been contrasted based on 820 valid individual structured questionnaires administered to consumers of 13 trade names in four retail distribution sectors (food, textile, electronics and household goods). Findings The results provide evidence of the positive influence of relationship benefits on store loyalty and in particular the benefits stemming from trust. The links between social and special treatment benefits in relation to loyalty are, however, significantly stronger in the less innovative establishments. Research limitations/implications This paper provides evidence of the moderating role of innovation on the relationship between social benefits and special treatment benefits and loyalty. Practical implications Technology may be used as a differentiation tool. The retailer should concentrate its investments on information and communications technology solutions that contribute to enhance the customer experience at the point of sale without neglecting the social dimension to increase the benefits of trust and ultimately, customer loyalty. Originality/value The paper provides an in-depth examination of the retail innovation variable which is scarcely analysed in the literature, offering support for the idea that innovation at the point of sale plays a moderating role in the links between relational benefits and customer loyalty.

Revisiting the role of relationship benefits in online retail

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 745-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavleen Soni
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
North India ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Treatment Benefits ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Relationship Benefits

Purpose Given the importance of relationship benefits in creating customer satisfaction, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of relationship benefits (special treatment benefits and confidence benefits) on relationship quality and word of mouth (WOM) for online retailers. The conditional mediating role of relationship quality between customer satisfaction and WOM is also examined. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 700 MBA students from two universities in Punjab (North India) has been used to collect data. Structural equation modelling and PROCESS Macro (Hayes (2017) have been used for data analysis (mod mod mediation). Findings When customers perceive high confidence benefits, special treatment benefits moderate the mediational role of relationship quality between customer satisfaction and WOM. Specific conditions under which use of confidence benefits and special treatment benefits are successful for online retailers have also been identified. Practical implications Tailored use of special treatment benefits with confidence benefits in appropriate combinations will help the online retailers in segmenting the customers and differentiating amongst them according to the customers’ receptivity towards these benefits. Marketers can devise communication strategies, create customer segments and position their services using the results obtained in the study. Originality/value The present study is the first of its kind which clarifies as to why the previous literature considered special treatment benefits as less relevant to customers. It also establishes the situations in which these benefits successfully moderate the effect of customer satisfaction in developing relationship quality and eliciting positive WOM in the Indian internet retailing context.

Capturing customer’s store loyalty through relationship benefits: Moderating effect of retail innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisar Ahmed Channa ◽  
Maqsood Hussain Bhutto ◽  
Musaira Bhutto ◽  
Niaz Ahmed Bhutto ◽  
Beenish Tariq
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Consumer Loyalty ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Treatment Benefits ◽  
Relationship Benefits ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Retail Establishments

Purpose Research suggests that innovation plays a key role in creating a competitive edge and business survival in highly competitive industries like retail. Despite the importance of innovation in retail establishments, very limited efforts have been made so far to study how innovation influences consumer behavior in retail establishments. This paper aims to identify the impact of relationship benefits (i.e. confidence, social and special treatment benefits) on consumer’s loyalty with the retail store and examine the moderating effect of retailer innovation in these relationships. Design/methodology/approach To conduct this study, a sample comprised of 400 consumers of four retail sectors (i.e. household, electronics, textile and food) was chosen. The data were analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. Findings The findings of this research suggest a significant positive influence of confidence and special treatment benefits on consumer loyalty and that retail innovation moderates the link between relationship benefits and consumer loyalty. Originality/value This research contributes to the existing literature in the domain of retail customer loyalty by empirically testing the under-studied phenomenon of retail innovation with the help of contingency theory.

scholarly journals Service quality, religiosity, customer satisfaction, customer engagement and Islamic bank’s customer loyalty

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1691-1705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abror Abror ◽  
Dina Patrisia ◽  
Yunita Engriani ◽  
Susi Evanita ◽  
Yasri Yasri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Service Quality ◽  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Customer Engagement ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Islamic Banks ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Islamic Bank ◽  
Moderating Role

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the influential factors of customer loyalty to Islamic banks, namely, service quality, customer satisfaction, customer engagement and religiosity. Design/methodology/approach This study is a survey of 335 Islamic bank customers in West Sumatra, Indonesia. This research deployed purposive sampling and analyzed the data by using covariance-based structural equation modeling. Findings Service quality has a positive and significant impact on customer satisfaction. Religiosity has a significant and negative moderating impact on the service quality–customer satisfaction relationship. Service quality has no significant influence on customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction is a significant antecedent of customer engagement and loyalty. Finally, customer engagement has a significant and positive effect on customer loyalty. Research limitations/implications This study is a combination of cross-sectional and a single-country case. Accordingly, the results may not be representative of other countries. Similar studies in longitudinal data collection are conducted in other countries (e.g. ASEAN countries), which would therefore be worthwhile. Some antecedents of customer loyalty have been neglected in this study (e.g. customer value co-creation and customer commitment); hence, the future study may investigate those factors. Practical implications By considering these Islamic banks’ antecedents, the Islamic banks might enhance their customer loyalty. Also, this study has revealed the moderating role of religiosity in a loyalty relationship. Therefore, it will give insights for the Islamic bank managers in decision-making. Originality/value This study has revealed the moderating role of religiosity on the link between service quality and customer satisfaction in Islamic banks, which is, to the authors’ knowledge, neglected in the previous studies. The customers with high religiosity will have a higher standard of satisfaction and demand a better service quality than the customers with low religiosity. This study has also examined the relationships between service quality, religiosity, customer satisfaction, customer engagement and loyalty as a whole, which have been limited previously.

The influences of relational benefits on repurchase intention in service contexts: the roles of gratitude, trust and commitment

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 680-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shihyu Chou ◽  
Chi-Wen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Commitment ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Personal Contact ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Repurchase Intention ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Contact Group ◽  
Treatment Benefits ◽  
Relationship Benefits ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop and examine an integrated mediating model that contains relationship benefits as the relationship antecedents; trust, relationship commitment and gratitude as mediators; and repurchase intention as the relationship consequence in a service business context. Design/methodology/approach The study recruited 253 respondents to test the proposed model. A partial-least-square-based structural equation modeling was adopted to evaluate the measurement of research constructs and test the research hypotheses that underpinned a proposed conceptual model. Findings The results show that confidence benefits increase trust more than social and special treatment benefits; social benefits have the most influence on relationship commitment; and special treatment benefits most greatly enhance feelings of gratitude. Thus, depending on the improvement objectives, marketers can accordingly choose the proper relationship benefits as a primary approach. Furthermore, both the direct and indirect effects of confidence benefits and social benefits on repurchase intention were significant. Research limitations/implications The main limitation of this study is that all research variables were measured at a static point rather than as they were developing. Ignorance of the temporal sequence may incur the concern of possible spurious causal relationship inferences. Practical implications The study’s findings offer several important implications for service providers, which, in this study, were separated into high (e.g. such as hairdressing, beauty and massage) and low personal contact service groups (e.g. telecommunications and equipment maintenance). First, social benefits are more effective at increasing gratitude in the low personal contact service group, and at boosting trust in the high-contact group. Second, special treatment benefits increase gratitude much more in the high-contact group than in the low personal contact group. Third, gratitude has a much stronger effect on repurchase intention in the high personal contact group than in the low-contact group. Originality/value The interactions among relationship benefits, mediators (i.e. trust and relationship commitment) and outcomes remain unclear. Although the importance of gratitude as a mediator in relationship marketing (RM) has been shown, little research has examined how relational benefits influence repurchase intention through the combined mediating effects of commitment, trust and gratitude. Therefore, this study advances RM theory by examining the degree of additional explaining power that gratitude contributes to the commitment–trust model. The study also makes a practical contribution by building a research model to understand the nature of mediating roles played by relationship commitment, trust and gratitude in the service industry.

scholarly journals Unlocking behaviors of long-term service consumers: the role of action inertia

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Leppäniemi ◽  
Chanaka Jayawardhena ◽  
Heikki Karjaluoto ◽  
David Harness
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Path Modeling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Continuous Service ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Measurement And Analysis ◽  
Moderating Role ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of word-of-mouth (WOM) in long-term service settings. Specifically, the authors examine the moderating role of action inertia in the relationships between satisfaction and repatronage intention, satisfaction and WOM, and repatronage intention and WOM. Design/methodology/approach The proposed model was empirically tested using survey data from 1,385 telecommunications service subscribers. The data were analyzed using partial least squares path modeling. Findings Results suggest that a positive link between repatronage intention and WOM, hereto a neglected relationship in the marketing literature, in contrast to previous literature, the behaviors of long-term customers are not predictable, and action inertia strengthens satisfaction – WOM and repatronage intention – WOM links and weakens satisfaction – repatronage intention link. Research limitations/implications This study examines customers of a utilitarian service. To further determine the potential of the model, it is desirable to explore the validity of the model in other service settings, particularly those with high hedonic values. Practical implications The study provides valuable insights into repatronage intention – WOM link, with particular emphasis on the measurement and analysis of action inertia. This is important in understanding and evaluating inertia influences and identification of the drivers of WOM. These insights can be used by managers to better allocate their resources when investing in customer loyalty-building exercises and in generating WOM. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature in three main ways. First, it examines the nuances of customer loyalty in continuous service contexts. Second, the study empirically tests the role of repatronage intention as an antecedent of WOM. Third, the study introduces and tests the moderating role of action inertia on positive WOM.

Relational benefits and loyalty in retailing: an inter‐sector comparison

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 493-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria‐Eugenia Ruiz‐Molina ◽  
Irene Gil‐Saura ◽  
Gloria Berenguer‐Contrí
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Equation Model ◽  
Corporate Image ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Treatment Benefits ◽  
Relational Benefits

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically a model that reflects the different types of relational benefits perceived by customers, as well as the benefits obtained by the organization in terms of customer loyalty.Design/methodology/approachIn order to achieve the aim of this paper, a quantitative analysis through a personal survey to consumers for four types of retailing activities is performed. Data are analyzed through factor analysis and a structural equation model is estimated.FindingsConfidence benefits and special treatment benefits have major influence on customer loyalty towards the retailer. These results are consistent across retail activities.Research limitations/implicationsThe present study is limited in its scope and a first approach is considered that it might inspire further research adding new constructs into the model in order to deepen into the analysis of the relationship between customer and retailer relational benefits.Practical implicationsSince the benefits related to purchase risk reduction and confidence are the most influencing on customer loyalty, the retailer should concentrate his efforts in offering guarantees for his products and carrying out communication campaigns for improving corporate image. Also actions providing special treatment benefits might have a positive influence on customer loyalty.Originality/valueRelational benefits and results for the retailer are studied in four different retail activities.

The relationship between CRM and customer loyalty: the moderating role of customer trust

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirza Mohammad Didarul Alam ◽  
Rashed Al Karim ◽  
Wardha Habiba
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Customer Engagement ◽  
Customer Knowledge ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Trust ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Moderating Role

PurposeThe present study investigates the moderating role of customer trust in customer relationship management (CRM) components and customer loyalty relationships in the context of the baking sector in Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through a survey using a structured questionnaire from 350 customers of commercial banks in Bangladesh.FindingsThe key finding is that all CRM components (customer orientation, customer advocacy and customer knowledge) except customer engagement have positive impact on customer loyalty. Moreover, customer trust only moderates the relationship between customer knowledge and customer loyalty, whereas other CRM components and customer loyalty do not moderate by trust.Originality/valueThe findings of the study add to the substantial pool of knowledge on CRM components, customer trust and customer loyalty literature. More specifically, the moderating role of customer trust between customer knowledge and customer loyalty is the novel contribution of this research which will enrich the existing CRM literature particularly in the banking sector of Bangladesh.

Will ‘doing right’ lead to ‘doing well’? An examination of green behavior

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupama Sukhu ◽  
Robert Scharff
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Reasoned Action ◽  
Subjective Norms ◽  
Green Marketing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
Green Behavior ◽  
Moderating Role ◽  
Green Hotels

Purpose The purpose of this research was to identify the drivers of customer loyalty in the context of green marketing. In particular, the extended theory of reasoned action model specified here added crucial constructs in consumer behavior, namely, consumers’ trust and beliefs about corporate social responsibility, to increase the predictability of the model. Additionally, the moderating role of level of education in predicting customer loyalty to hotels was also examined. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methodology was used for the study. A structural mixed methodology was used for the study. A structural model was developed to understand the theoretical relationships between identified constructs. Additionally, multiple regression analyses were used to identify the moderating role of level of education in predicting consumer loyalty. Data collected through an online survey from 446 hotel guests were used for the analyses. Findings The results indicated that in addition to attitude and subjective norms, consumers’ trust in hotels’ intentions to be green influence their loyalty to green hotel enterprises. Further investigation also showed significant moderating influence of levels of education in their choice to be loyal to green hotels. Research limitations/implications Even though the majority of the study’s sample has extensive travel experience, the data were collected from university employees, which might have limited the findings of this study. Practical implications Consumers need to trust ethical claims in adopting green practices to become loyal customers. Hence, it is imperative for marketers to convey that their business believe in proenvironmental activities. Additionally, marketers should not neglect their level of education because it influences their loyalty to green hotels. Green marketing should target not only an individual customer but also his/her ties to significant others, because subjective norms influence customer loyalty to green hotels. Originality/value This research developed a comprehensive model to understand customer loyalty to green hotels, thus providing insights to marketers and academics about a timely subject, namely, green behavior. In doing so, this research added crucial constructs to extend the traditional model of theory of reasoned action as well as examined the moderating role of level of education in the identified model.

scholarly journals CAN RELATIONSHIP BENEFITS MAKE CUSTOMERS COMMITTED AND LOYAL?

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-153
Author(s):  
Fransisca Andreani ◽  
Laurencia Jap ◽  
Ivana Karina Hosea
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Partial Least Square ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Competitive Strategies ◽  
Customer Commitment ◽  
Treatment Benefits ◽  
Relationship Benefits ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Analyze Data

Tough competition has pushed four-star hotels in Surabaya to manage their competitive strategies. One of them is by providing relational benefits to maintain customer commitment and loyalty. This study is to reveal the impact of relationship benefits on customer loyalty with customer commitment as a mediating variable in four-star hotels in Surabaya. Partial Least Square (PLS) is used to analyze data. It is found that relationship benefits (confidence, social and special treatment benefits) have influenced customer loyalty with commitment as the mediating variable. The results show that relationship benefits have positive and significant impacts to customer commitment; and customer commitment also has positive and significant impact to customer loyalty.

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