Exploring The Role Of Grounded Relationship Quality And Loyal Customer Contribution In The Satisfaction Loyalty Chain In Ongoing Service Relationships
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Exploring the Role of Grounded Relationship Quality and Loyal Customer Contribution in the Satisfaction-loyalty Chain in Ongoing Service Relationships
This study revisits the customer loyalty debate in ongoing service relationships. The current loyalty paradigm of relationship marketing is the satisfaction-loyalty chain, in which customer loyalty is a one-dimensional concept of intensive usage and promotion (Zeithaml, Berry & Parasuraman, 1996), and in which customer satisfaction, trust and commitment form the full mediation mechanism between any service or relational stimulus and customer loyalty (e.g. Aurier & NGoala, 2010). Besides being a loyal customer, customers can also contribute to the customer experience and the service organization by fulfilling a variety of organizational roles and functions (e.g. Fliess, Dyck & Smelter, 2014). This study theorized and found empirical support that, in ongoing service relationships,1) A customers self-reported contribution behaviors that are motivated in loyalty (Loyal Contribution) constitute an expression of loyalty which is independent from the traditional loyalty concept contained in the satisfaction-loyalty chain. 2) Grounded Relationship Quality, defined as the degree to which customers meta-cognitively qualify their ongoing service relationship as one in which structural relationship qualities are concretely constructed and enacted together with the service organization, effectuates a direct effect on Loyal Contribution, with no mediation role for satisfaction, trust, commitment or loyalty.3) Grounded Relationship Quality is an important mediator of the effect of customer trust on customer commitment. This study is also original in having observed that not commitment but overall customer satisfaction is the strongest driver of traditional loyalty in ongoing service relationships, whereby trust and commitment are key attributes and key antecedents of overall satisfaction. The empirically validated model of primary structural relationships shows the key theoretical implication of this study: in ongoing service relationships customers mental relationship states between satisfaction and loyalty should be studied as an omni-directional plane, rather than as a one-directional chain. This plane is defined by the two dimensions of customer contribution and psychological distance, and is referred to as the State of Relationship.
Managing Customer Value
Even today with quality improvement the battle cry of American industry, the quality programs in most companies are limited to "conformance to technical standards," according to quality expert Bradley Gale. While some have ventured a step farther to measure customer satisfaction, few of them, Gale demonstrates, have attempted to track market-perceived "quality" -- how buyers select among competing suppliers, why orders are won or lost, and which competitors are succeeding in which market segments. Using cases including Milliken & Company; AT&T, United Van Lines, and Gillette, Gale shows how leading-edge companies have gone beyond the minimal achievements of conformance quality and customer satisfaction to focus on the third, higher stage, "market-perceived quality versus competitors" and aspire to an emerging fourth stage, "true strategic management." Drawing on his extensive research at AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Parke-Davis, and other world-class companies, Gale provides new metrics for market-perceived quality that are straightforward and easy to interpret. His set of seven integrative tools for customer value analysis makes up the heart of the "war room wall" to help guide business-unit teams in their effort to outperform competitors in satisfying customers. The great value of these tools is that they are derived from a future-oriented strategic navigation system that tracks competitive information and market-perceived quality. Learning to master this system accelerates customer satisfaction from a slogan to a science and leads ultimately to true strategic management -- the fourth stage of Total Quality Management. The processes described in this book provide an insider's perspective on the criteria of the Baldrige Award. Bradley Gale's insights and innovative methods for defining, measuring, and improving market-perceived quality will create an entirely new thrust for the worldwide quality movement.
Customer Loyalty and Brand Management
Loyalty is one of the main assets of a brand. In today’s markets, achieving and maintaining loyal customers has become an increasingly complex challenge for brands due to the widespread acceptance and adoption of diverse technologies by which customers communicate with brands. Customers use different channels (physical, web, apps, social media) to seek information about a brand, communicate with it, chat about the brand and purchase its products. Firms are thus continuously changing and adapting their processes to provide customers with agile communication channels and coherent, integrated brand experiences through the different channels in which customers are present. In this context, understanding how brand management can improve value co-creation and multichannel experience—among other issues—and contribute to improving a brand’s portfolio of loyal customers constitutes an area of special interest for academics and marketing professionals. This Special Issue explores new areas of customer loyalty and brand management, providing new insights into the field. Both concepts have evolved over the last decade to encompass such concepts and practices as brand image, experiences, multichannel context, multimedia platforms and value co-creation, as well as relational variables such as trust, engagement and identification (among others).