The Relative Contribution of Love and Trust Toward Customer Loyalty

Maintaining a long term relationship with customers is a challenge for organizations (Gummesson 2008; Oliver 1999). A key objective for organizations seeking to build customer loyalty may be to create superior customer experience. Scholars have called for varied views on customer experience (e.g., Verhoef et al. 2009). Amongst the relevant studies of interpersonal relationships in the disciplines of marketing and psychology, it is noteworthy that scholars have specifically called for a study of love. The contribution of love remains to be explored in the business context. Compared with love, the concept of trust is well recognized for its significance to a long term business. In most studies of interpersonal relationships across the disciplines of marketing and psychology, trust appears to be the critical factor in engaging customers in a relationship (e.g., Johnson and Grayson 2000; Rempel et al. 1985). The likely interaction between love and trust foreshadowed in prior studies (e.g., Fehr 1993) suggests the need of studying both factors of love and trust simultaneously. Yet, to the authors’ knowledge, the relative contribution of love and trust to loyalty has never been examined in the context of commercial relationships. Therefore, this study aims to examine these two constructs, love and trust, in providing an insigh er loyalty in the business context.