Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 5/2012

01-09-2012 | Original Empirical Research

Consequences of customer loyalty to the loyalty program and to the company

Authors: Heiner Evanschitzky, B. Ramaseshan, David M. Woisetschläger, Verena Richelsen, Markus Blut, Christof Backhaus

Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science | Issue 5/2012

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

Gaining customer loyalty is an important goal of marketing, and loyalty programs are intended to help in reaching it. Research on loyalty programs suggests that customers differentiate between loyalty to a company and loyalty to a loyalty program, yet little is known about the consequences of these two types of loyalty. Therefore, our study intends to make two main contributions: (1) improving our understanding of the constructs “program loyalty” and “company loyalty”, (2) investigating the relative impact of the two types of loyalty on preference, intention, and purchase behavior for the case of a multi-firm loyalty program. Results indicate that company loyalty influences a customer’s choice to visit a particular provider and to prefer it over competitors, but it is not a strong predictor of purchase behavior. Conversely, program loyalty is a far more important driver of purchase behavior. This implies that company loyalty primarily attracts customers to a particular provider and program loyalty ensures that once inside the store, more money is spent.
next article Genetic and neurological foundations of customer orientation: field and experimental evidence

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Even though it is not the key contribution of our paper to derive antecedents of the two loyalties, we run models with alternative operationalizations of both company and program loyalty in which all six antecedents load on both loyalties. These alternative models have a significantly worse model fit compared to the original model. Full model results are available upon request from the lead author.
 
2
We also assessed whether CL is antecedent to PL or vice versa. Results indicate a weak regression coefficient from CL to PL (.051, p < .05) and a stronger one from PL to CL (.278, p < .01). However, neither of these two alternative models fit the data better than the original model in which PL and CL are allowed to correlate. We thank one anonymous reviewer for raising this point.
 
3
To test for model stability, we also estimated the models with SEMs (overall fits: CFI between .949 and .956; TLI .943–.955; RMSEA .049–.055; SRMR .060–.064) and found that the results did not substantially change. In particular, the path coefficients are almost identical to the ones found using 3SLS.
 
Literature
Adams, J. S. (1963). Toward an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(5), 422–436.CrossRef
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267–299.CrossRef
Ajzen, I. (1982). Equity in attitude formation and change. In J. Greenberg & R. L. Cohen (Eds.), Equity and justice in social behavior (pp. 161–186). New York: Academic.
Anderson, E. W., & Sullivan, M. W. (1993). The antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction for firms. Marketing Science, 12(2), 125–143.CrossRef
Anderson, E. W., Fornell, C., & Lehmann, D. R. (1994). Customer satisfaction, market share, and profitability: findings from Sweden. Journal of Marketing, 58(July), 53–66.CrossRef
Armstrong, S. J., & Overton, T. S. (1977). Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys. Journal of Marketing Research, 14(August), 396–402.CrossRef
Beatty, S. E., & Kahle, L. R. (1988). Alternative hierarchies of the attitude-behavior relationship: the impact of brand commitment and habit. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 16(Summer), 1–10.CrossRef
Beatty, S. E., Mayer, M., Coleman, J. E., Reynolds, K. E., & Lee, J. (1996). Customer-sales associate retail relationships. Journal of Retailing, 72(3), 223–247.CrossRef
Beggs, A., & Klemperer, P. (1992). Multi-period competition with switching costs. Econometrica, 60(3), 651–666.CrossRef
Beirne M (2008) Hotel loyalty programs increase in popularity. BRANDWEEK, August 22
Berry, L. L. (1993). Playing fair in retailing. Arthur Anderson Retailing Issues Newsletter, 5, 5.
Berry, L. L. (1995). Relationship marketing of services: growing interest, emerging perspectives. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 23(Fall), 236–254.CrossRef
Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1991). Marketing services—competing through quality. New York: The Free Press.
Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley.
Bloemer, J., & Kasper, H. (1995). The complex relationship between consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Journal of Economic Psychology, 16(2), 311–329.CrossRef
Bolton, R. N., Kannan, P. K., & Bramlett M. D. (2000). Implications of Loyalty Program Membership and Service Experiences for Customer Retention and Value. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(1), 95–108.
Bradach, J. L., & Eccles, R. G. (1989). Price, authority, trust: from ideal types to plural forms. Annual Review of Sociology, 15, 97–118.CrossRef
Chaudhuri, A., & Holbrook, M. B. (2001). The chain of effects from brand trust and brand affect to brand performance: the role of brand loyalty. Journal of Marketing, 65, 81–93.CrossRef
Cronin, J. J., Jr., & Taylor, S. A. (1992). Measuring service quality: a reexamination and extension. Journal of Marketing, 56, 68–81.CrossRef
Delgado-Ballester, E., & Munuera-Aleman, J. L. (2001). Brand trust in the context of consumer loyalty. European Journal of Marketing, 35(11/12), 1238–1258.CrossRef
De Wulf, K., Odekerken-Schroder, G., & Iacobucci, D. (2001). Investments on consumer relationships: a cross-country and cross-industry exploration. Journal of Marketing, 65, 33–50.CrossRef
Dick, A. S., & Basu, K. (1994). Customer loyalty: toward an integrated conceptual framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 22, 99–113.CrossRef
Dowling, G., & Uncles, M. (1997). Do customer loyalty programs really work? Sloan Management Review, 38(4), 71–82.
Evanschitzky, H., & Wunderlich, M. (2006). An examination of moderator effects in the four-stage loyalty model. Journal of Service Research, 8(4), 330–345.CrossRef
Evanschitzky, H., Iyer, G. R., Plaßmann, H., Nießing, J., & Meffert, H. (2006). The relative strength of affective commitment in securing loyalty in service relationships. Journal of Business Research, 59(12), 1207–1213.CrossRef
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18, 39–50.CrossRef
Fournier, S., Dobscha, S., & Mick, D. G. (1998). Preventing the premature death of relationship marketing. Harvard Business Review, 76(1), 42–45.
Fox, A. (1974). Beyond contract: Work, power and trust relationships. London: Faber.
Fullerton, G. (2003). When does commitment lead to loyalty? Journal of Service Research, 5(4), 333–344.CrossRef
Garbarino, E., & Johnson, M. S. (1999). The different roles of satisfaction, trust, and commitment in customer relationships. Journal of Marketing, 63(April), 70–87.CrossRef
Goodwin, C. (1997). Communality as a dimension of service relationships. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 5(4), 387–415.CrossRef
Goodwin, C., & Gremler, D. D. (1996). Friendship over the counter: How social aspects of service encounters influence consumer service loyalty. In T. A. Swartz, D. E. Bowen, & S. W. Brown (Eds.), Advances in services marketing and management, vol. 5 (pp. 247–282). Greenwich: JAI.CrossRef
Greene, H. W. (2007). Econometric analysis (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Gundlach, G. T., Archol, R. S., & Mentzer, J. T. (1995). The structure of commitment in exchange. Journal of Marketing, 59, 78–92.CrossRef
Gwinner, K., Gremler, D., & Bitner, M. J. (1998). Relational benefits in service industries: the customer’s perspective. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 26(2), 101–114.CrossRef
Hair, J., Black, W. C., Babin, B., Anderson, R. E., & Tatham, R. L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis (6th ed.). Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs.
Harris, L. C., & Goode, M. M. H. (2004). The four levels of loyalty and the pivotal role of trust: a study of online service dynamics. Journal of Retailing, 80(2), 139–158.CrossRef
Harrison-Walker, J. (2001). The measurement of word-of-mouth communication and an investigation of service quality and customer commitment as potential antecedents. Journal of Service Research, 4, 60–75.CrossRef
Hennig-Thurau, T., Gwinner, K. P., & Gremler, D. D. (2002). Understanding relationship marketing outcomes: an integration of relational benefits and relationship quality. Journal of Service Research, 4(3), 230–247.CrossRef
Jones, M. A., Mothersbaugh, D. L., & Beatty, S. E. (2000). Switching barriers and purchase intentions in services. Journal of Retailing, 76(2), 259–274.CrossRef
Kumar, V., & Reinartz, W. J. (2006). Customer relationship management: A databased approach. New York: Wiley.
Kumar, N., Stern, L. W., & Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M. (1995). The effects of perceived interdependence on dealer attitudes. Journal of Marketing Research, 32, 348–356.CrossRef
Leenheer, J., van Heerde, H. J., Bijmolt, T. H. A., & Smidts, A. (2007). Do loyalty programs really enhance behavioral loyalty? An empirical analysis accounting for self-selected members. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 24, 31–47.CrossRef
Liu, Y. (2007). The long-term impact of loyalty programs. Journal of Marketing, 71, 19–35.CrossRef
Meyer-Waarden, L. (2007). The effects of loyalty programs on customer lifetime duration and share of wallet. Journal of Retailing, 83(2), 223–236.CrossRef
Moorman, C., Zaltman, G., & Deshpande, R. (1992). Relationships between providers and users of market research: the dynamics of trust within and between organizations. Journal of Marketing Research, 29, 314–329.CrossRef
Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship management. Journal of Marketing, 58, 20–38.CrossRef
Netemeyer, R. G., Krishnan, B., Pullig, C., Wang, G., Yagci, M., & Dean, D. (2004). Developing and validating measures of facets of customer-based brand equity. Journal of Business Research, 57(2), 209–224.CrossRef
O’Brien, L., & Jones, C. (1995). Do rewards really create loyalty? Harvard Business Review, 73(3), 75–85.
Oliver, R. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17, 460–469.CrossRef
Oliver, R. (1997). Satisfaction: A behavioural perspective on the consumer. New York: Irwin McGraw-Hill.
Oliver, R. (1999). Whence consumer loyalty. Journal of Marketing, 63, 33–44.CrossRef
Palmatier, R. W., & Gopalakrishna, S. (2005). Determining the payoff from relationship marketing programs. Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series, Issue 1(05–001), 49–70.
Parasuraman, A., & Grewal, D. (2000). The impact of technology on the quality-value- loyalty-chain: a research agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(December), 168–174.CrossRef
Patterson, P. G., & Smith, T. (2003). A cross-cultural study of switching barriers and propensity to stay with service providers. Journal of Retailing, 79(2), 107–120.CrossRef
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879–903.CrossRef
Reinartz, W. J., & Kumar, V. (2003). The impact of customer relationship characteristics on profitable lifetime duration. Journal of Marketing, 67, 77–99.CrossRef
Reynolds, K. E., & Beatty, S. E. (1999). A relationship customer typology. Journal of Retailing, 75(4), 509–524.CrossRef
Rust, R. T., Lemon, K. N., & Zeithaml, V. A. (2004). Return on marketing: using customer equity to focus marketing strategy. Journal of Marketing, 68, 109–127.CrossRef
Sherman, S. (1992). Are strategic alliances working? Fortune, September, 77–78.
Shugan, S. (2005). Brand loyalty programs: are they shams? Marketing Science, 24, 185–193.CrossRef
Sirdeshmukh, D., Singh, J., & Sabol, B. (2002). Consumer trust, value, and loyalty in relational exchanges. Journal of Marketing, 66(1), 15–37.CrossRef
Szymanski, D. M., & Henard, D. H. (2001). Customer satisfaction: a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 29, 16–35.
Taylor, G. A., & Neslin, S. A. (2005). The current and future sales impact of a retail frequency reward program. Journal of Retailing, 81(4), 293–305.CrossRef
The Economist (2002). Frequent-flyer economics (May 4), 62.
Thibaut, J., & Kelley, H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. New York: Wiley.
Uncles, M. D., Dowling, G. R., & Hammond, K. (2003). Customer loyalty and customer loyalty programs. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 20(4), 294–316.CrossRef
Verhoef, P. (2003). Understanding the effect of customer relationship management efforts on customer retention and customer share development. Journal of Marketing, 67, 30–45.CrossRef
Verhoef, P., Langerak, F., & Donkers, B. (2007). Understanding brand and dealer retention in the new car market: the moderating role of brand tier. Journal of Retailing, 83(1), 97–113.CrossRef
Vogel, V., Evanschitzky, H., & Ramaseshan, B. (2008). Customer equity drivers and future sales. Journal of Marketing, 72, 98–108.CrossRef
Wendlandt, M., & Schrader, U. (2007). Consumer reactance against loyalty programs. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 24(5), 293–304.
Wirtz, J., Mattila, A. S., & Lwin, M. O. (2007). How effective are loyalty reward programs in driving share of wallet? Journal of Service Research, 9, 327–334.CrossRef
Yang, Z., & Peterson, R. T. (2004). Customer perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty: the role of switching costs. Psychology and Marketing, 21(10), 799–822.CrossRef
Yi, Y., & Jeon, H. (2003). Effects of loyalty programs on value perception, program loyalty, and brand loyalty. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 31(June), 229–240.CrossRef
Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52, 2–22.CrossRef
Zeithaml, V. A. (2000). Service quality, profitability, and the economic worth of customers: what we know and what we need to learn. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(1), 67–85.CrossRef
Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1996). The behavioral consequences of service quality. Journal of Marketing, 60, 31–46.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Consequences of customer loyalty to the loyalty program and to the company
Authors
Heiner Evanschitzky
B. Ramaseshan
David M. Woisetschläger
Verena Richelsen
Markus Blut
Christof Backhaus
Publication date
01-09-2012
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science / Issue 5/2012
Print ISSN: 0092-0703
Electronic ISSN: 1552-7824
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-011-0272-3

Other articles of this Issue 5/2012

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 5/2012 Go to the issue

Original Empirical Research

Marketing control rights and their distribution within technology licensing agreements: a real options perspective

Original Empirical Research

Slotting allowances: a time series analysis of aggregate effects over three decades

Original Empirical Research

Exciting red and competent blue: the importance of color in marketing

Original Empirical Research

Implementing an intended brand personality: a dyadic perspective

Original Empirical Research

Genetic and neurological foundations of customer orientation: field and experimental evidence

Original Empirical Research

Consumer spending self-control effectiveness and outcome elaboration prompts