Medha SRIVASTAVA, Alok Kr. RAI
In the ever elusive world of consumer behaviour, maintaining and sustaining customer relationships has become all the more crucial and challenging. Achieving customers’ loyalty has topped the priority list of businesses across industries all around the globe. However, most of the loyalty building exercises and programmes are based on a narrow definition of customer loyalty. This paper is an endeavour to unearth the true composition of customer loyalty. It also proposes a quantitative framework for assessment of customer loyalty with the help of its antecedents and outcomes.
In order to investigate the real nature of customer loyalty, its antecedents, and outcomes, a theoretical framework aimed at delineating the concept of customer loyalty has been developed from the existing literature.
The study suggests that satisfaction, though a crucial milestone, cannot, by itself, secure customer loyalty. To reduce the risks related to defection, unfavourable word of mouth and dormant customer support, customer satisfaction needs to be augmented with emotional attachment. Such emotional bonding coupled with satisfaction experienced by the customer is likely to lead to loyalty behaviours namely, preference, patronage and premium.
Customer loyalty stands for far more than repeat behaviours such as repurchases and revisits. It consists of a customer’s attitude, behaviour and cognition which manifests in his preference for and patronage towards the brand, even at a premium cost.