1、标题： Affecting customer loyalty: Do different factors have various influences in different loyalty levels? 原文： Abstract The current paper studies the influence of various factors on customer loyalty. The main hypothesis of the study insists that the list of most important factors affectin
2、g loyalty is dependant on the level of loyalty of costumers. LOGIT method was used for testing the hypotheses on the sample of survey data about 1000 private customers of the biggest telecommunication company in Estonia. The results reveal that four analysed factors affecting customer loyalty (satis
3、faction, trustworthiness, image and importance of relationship) are playing different role on the different levels of customer loyalty. INTRODUCTION Recent years have shown a growing interest in customer loyalty. The globalisation of competition, saturation of markets, and development o
4、f information technology have enhanced customer awareness and created a situation where long-term success is no longer achieved through optimised product price and qualities. Instead, companies build their success on a long-term customer relationship. According to former studies, it can cost as much
5、 as 6 times more to win a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. (Rosenberg et al. 1984: 45) Depending on the particular industry, it is possible to increase profit by up to 60% after reducing potential migration by 5%. (Reichheld 1993: 65) Hence we can see that the increase and retentio
6、n of loyal customers has become a key factor for long-term success of the companies. The main emphasis in marketing has shifted from winning new customers to the retention of existing ones. LITERATURE OVERVIEW Segmentation based on customer loyalty There are multiple approaches to customer loyalty.
7、Theories of behavioral loyalty were dominating until 1970 considering loyalty as the function of the share of total purchases (Cunningham 1956:118； Farley 1964:9), function of buying frequency or buying pattern (Tucker 1964: 32； Sheth 1968: 398) or function of buying probability (Harary et al.
8、 1962； McConnell 1968:14； Wernerfelt 1991: 231). These approaches looked at brand loyalty in terms of outcomes (repeat purchase behavior) rather than reasons, until Day (1969) introduced the two-dimensional concept of brand loyalty, which stated that loyalty should be evaluated with both behavioral
9、and attitudinal criteria. Contemporary researches consider and accent the psychological (mostly attitudinal and emotional) factor of loyalty (Jacoby et al. 1973:2； Oliver 1999: 34； Chaudury 1995: 28； Djupe 2000: 79； Reichheld 2003: 47). There are also approaches comparing loyalty with marriage (Hofm
10、eyr et al. 2000: 5383； Lewitt 1983: 89； Dwyer et al. 1987: 14). These different approaches allow distinguishing customers as whether behaviorally or emotionally loyal. Behaviorally loyal customers act loyal but have no emotional bond with the brand or the supplier whereas emotionally loyal customers
11、 do. Jones and Sasser call these two kind of loyalty accordingly false or true longterm loyalty (Jones et al. 1995: 90). Hofmeyr and Rice (2000: 87) divide customers to loyal (behavioral) or committed (emotional). Emotional loyalty is much stronger and longer lasting than behavioral loyalty. Its an
12、enduring desire to maintain a valued relationship. The relationship is so important for the customer that he or she makes maximum efforts to maintain it. (Morgan et al. 1995: 24； Reichheld 2003: 9； Moorman et al. 1992: 316) Highly bonded customers will buy repeatedly from a provider to which they ar
13、e bonded, recommend that provider to others, and strongly defend these choices to others insisting that they have chosen the best product or service. (Butz et al. 1996: 65) Behaviorally loyal customers could be divided to sub-segments by the reason of acting: Forced to be loyal, Loyal due to inertia
14、 or Functionally loyal. Customers are forced to be loyal when they have to be clients even if they do not want to. Customers may be forced to consume certain products or products/services offered by certain vendor e.g. when the company acts as a monopoly or the poor financial status of the cus
15、tomer is limiting his selection of goods. Grnholdt, Martensen and Kristensen have found that companies with low price strategy had a much higher loyalty than expected from their customer satisfaction. On the other hand, companies that had used a lot of energy on branding indeed had a high customer s
16、atisfaction but they did not have a correspondingly high loyalty. (Grnholdt et al. 2000: 512) Forced loyalty could be established trough creating exit barriers as well. Loyal behaviour may also result from inertia customer does not move to another vendor due to comfort or relatively low importance o
17、f operation if the choice has low importance, there is no point to spend time and effort on searching for alternatives. Thus, based on his faith in the suitability of the current product, the customer continues to use it without checking alternatives. Its in accordance to Olivers approach of cogniti
18、ve loyalty: the loyalty that is based on brand belief only. Cognition can be based on prior or vicarious knowledge or on recent experience-based information. If the transaction is routine, so that satisfaction is not processed (e.g. trash pickup, utility provision), the depth of loyalty is no deeper
19、 than mere performance. (Oliver 1999: 35) Hofmeyr and Rice (2000: 23) say that one of the reasons that customers dont switch brands when they are dissatisfied is that they feel that the alternatives are just as bad as the brand they are using or even worse. Inertia may be caused also by lack of info
20、rmation about attractive characteristics of the brands (Wernerfelt 1991:231). Functionally loyal customers are loyal because they have an objective reason to be. Wernerfelt points out cost-based brand loyalty where brand utilities have a positive influence on brand choice. (Wernerfelt 1991:231) Func
21、tional loyalty can be created by functional values using price, quality, distribution, usage convenience of a product or through different loyalty programs (points, coupons, games, draws etc.) giving a concrete reason to prefer certain supplier. Unfortunately competitors can most easily copy functional values. Thus, creating functional value offers a fleeting
