It is a marketplace reality that marketing managers sometimes inflict switching costs on their customers, to inhibit them from defecting to new suppliers. In a competitive setting, such as the Internet market, where competition may be only one click away, has the potential of switching costs as an exit barrier and a binding ingredient of customer loyalty become altered? To address that issue, t...

B loyalty and the more modern topics of computing customer lifetime value and structuring loyalty programs remain the focal point for a remarkable number of research articles. At first, this research appears consistent with firm practices. However, close scrutiny reveals disaffirming evidence. Many current so-called loyalty programs appear unrelated to the cultivation of customer brand loyalty ...

The present paper examines the effectiveness of financial overcompensation as a means to enhance customer loyalty after a product failure. Overcompensation implies that customers are entitled to a refund that is larger than the purchase price. It is, however, still unclear whether large overcompensations entail saturation effects, or alternatively, result in an actual drop in customer loyalty. ...

A widely cited model of customer loyalty is the typology proposed by Dick and Basu (1994) that depicts loyalty as a two-dimensional construct involving relative attitude and repeat patronage. However, while Dick and Basu conceptualise the loyalty construct, they do not operationalise it or provide empirical evidence of its predictive ability. This paper reports a test of the predictive ability ...

Customer loyalty is seen as one of the key factors of a company’s success. According to current research results, a necessary premise among others to gain customer loyalty is how the customers perceive the customer service. In the field of B2C e-commerce online customer support areas are used to fulfill parts of this support duty. It is an open question how big the impact of the online customer...

Customer loyalty is a key driver of financial performance in service organizations. We investigate whether or not online customer loyalty can be increased through enhancing the perceived service quality, reducing perceived sacrifice and improving the perceived service outcome in the online service context with the possible availability of live help service technology. We also investigate the mo...

With previous studies that examined the importance of functional store image and CSR, this study is aimed at examining their effects in the self-congruity model in influencing store loyalty. In particular, this study developed and tested a structural model in the context of retailing industry on the self-congruity theory. Whilst much of the self-congruity studies have incorporated functional st...

With the high costs of attracting new customers on the Internet, the profitability of an e-retailer is realized only during later purchases. Fostering loyalty among patrons is thus necessary for the success of e-retailers. This is more so because repeat purchases are not the only behavioral trait of the loyal customer—he also recommends his favorite e-retailers to potential buyers. This calls f...

The study of e-consumer behavior is getting more attention in e-commerce related literature. Acknowledging the importance of e-commerce, this study aims to investigate the influence of e-service quality dimensions (efficiency, requirement fulfilment, accessibility, privacy and responsiveness) on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty as well as to understand the mediating effect of customer...

BACKGROUND Effective leaders understand that loyal followers are the key for success. To win their loyalty, leaders usually build social exchange relationships with them, through a wide range of behaviours, such as honouring agreements or using open and transparent communication. However, the effect of these behaviours on their followers' loyalty can differ depending on followers' individual di...