Purpose - The purpose of the article is to investigate relationship quality in retail relationships as influenced by its antecedents (loyalty programme quality and personal interaction quality) and ...resulting in customer loyalty to the retailer. The focus is on loyalty programme members' perceptions and differences between segments of consumers with different levels of involvement in the product category.Design methodology approach - The method used was a consumer survey. Two waves of cross-sectional telephone interviewing with 116 and 410 members of a retail loyalty club were conducted. Structural equation modelling served for the estimation of relationships in an integrated conceptual framework among constructs of loyalty programme quality, personal interaction quality, relationship quality and loyalty, relevant to the development of retail relationships.Findings - The findings suggest that loyalty programme quality is important for relationship quality; however, efforts to assure personal interaction quality with customers are needed to improve relationship quality as well as customer loyalty. The study deepens knowledge of relationship quality's antecedents and consequences in the retail environment with regard to segments of customers with different levels of product category involvement.Research limitations implications - The research is limited to members of a selected DIY retailer's loyalty programme, not accounting specifically for membership in multiple loyalty programmes. Future research could use different methodologies such as longitudinal studies to examine dynamic relationships among the constructs in the study.Practical implications - In the retail context, practical implications of the impact of loyalty programme quality and of personal interaction quality on relationship quality and customer loyalty are considered.Originality value - The paper contributes to the understanding of members' perceptions and responses to relationship quality as well as to some mechanisms underlying customer loyalty in loyalty programmes.
The focus of this study is the determinants of customer loyalty among members of retail loyalty programs. With data collected from a DIY loyalty program in a Central European country (a preliminary ...sample of 116 club members and a representative sample of 416 members), the study empirically tests the nature of the effect of the quality of personal interactions and perceptions of the quality of the loyalty program on customer loyalty through the mediating variable of customer satisfaction. Although the findings suggest that the quality of personal interactions bears no direct influence on members’ loyalty, it has a stronger influence on members’ satisfaction than the perceived quality of the loyalty program does. Influence on members’ loyalty is stronger from the mediating variable of customer satisfaction than from perceived quality of the loyalty program. This finding confirms the role of customer satisfaction as an important determinant of customer loyalty in the DIY setting. Offering a diagnostic tool in terms of selected direct and indirect determinants influencing customers’ loyalty, the paper also contributes to comprehension of loyalty programs’ effectiveness and members’ responses to the quality of loyalty programs, which contribution provides important implications for management and development of retail loyalty programs.
Termin notranjega trženja je bil izpeljan iz pojmovanja t. i. notranjega trga zaposlenih in potreb tržnikov po tem, da najprej na strani zaposlenih zagotovijo razumevanje trženjskih programov, ki so ...namenjeni doseganju porabnikov. Gre torej za aplikacijo trženjskega načina razmišljanja na področje izobraževalnega menedžmenta zaposlenih. Pri uspešni implementaciji omenjenega gre za povezanost vrhnjega menedžmenta, trženjske funkcije in oddelka za ravnanje s človeškimi viri. Notranje trženje taka funkcionira kat holistično upravljan proces, ki predstavlja način oziroma filozofijo upravljanja pri komuniciranju, usposabljanju, izobraževanju in informiranju, motiviranju in razvoju ter pridobivanju, zaposlovanju in zadrževanju zaposlenih. Pri tem velja prenos pristojnosti na podrejene za ključno komponento notranjega trženja, v okviru katerega je zaradi dodatnih odgovornosti zaposlenih pomembna vloga izobraževalnega menedžmenta v luči vzgajanja servilne in h kupcu naravnane organizacijske kulture. Navkljub četrt stoletja dolgi zgodovini razvoja pa sicer sam koncept se ne uživa vsesplošne razpoznavnosti in razumevanja v svetu menedžmenta, saj naj bi bil ves čas naprednejši od okolja, v katerem se (je) nahaja(l).
Slovenski trg seminarjev in delavnic lahko oznacimo kat trg v stopnji zrelosti, na katerem je prisotna visoka stopnja konkurence; uspesno poslovanje na taksnem trgu je nedvomno velik poslovni izziv, ...pomen uCinkovitega in uspesnega trzenja pa igra pri tem pomembno vlogo. Avtorja skusata v clanku izpostaviti pomen in razumevanje trZ.enja storitev, kamor seveda stejemo dejavnost organiziranja seminmjev in delavnic. Posebnost se kaze predvsem v t. i. interaktivnem trzenju, ki ga lahko razlagamo kat vez med ponudnikom seminarjev in delavnic ter kupcem odlocevalcem oziroma udelezencem seminarja ali delavnice.
This study is based on the case of BMW, and aims to improve the determination of perceived consumer satisfaction in the automotive industry by transferring existing knowledge from the health care ...sector. A literature analysis of the health care sector and the automotive industry was conducted to identify the common concepts of determining satisfaction. These were the service encounter, situational factors, and sociodemographics. The practical application was tested by analyzing a contemporary survey from BMW. Based on the findings, managers responsible for customer satisfaction in after-sales services in the automotive industry could improve measurement of customer satisfaction.
Direct marketing is a two way communication process for creating interaction with customers with the purpose of information exchange and sales creation. It is also a powerful instrument for ...establishing and maintaining customers'relationships. Lately, the concept is gaining in the usage frequency on one side and the extension of methods on the other which is mostly a consequence of technological development. However, due to many employed methods and terms we are dealing with the terminological and definitional chaos. In this respect direct marketing should represent an umbrella term but in practice it is often misconceptualized with narrower terms and methods. Partly this is also due to a fact that direct marketing is only a recent development in the field of marketing. Thus the author tries to define the terminological limits of the main terms and presents the main point of views of discussed concept in the sense of marketing. This is important from the point of view of increased complexity of customers' needs satisfaction and from the point of view of direct marketing concept positioning within organizations as well. Direct marketing plays an important role in the contemporary business environment - in many cases it is already a complementary if not even the exclusive way of doing business. Thus the numerous variations of direct marketing methods and the expected development of them demand the correct comprehension.
Purpose - After almost a decade of relationship quality studies in the retail industry, high consensus exists regarding the dimensions that define the construct. Disregarding epistemological depth of ...the concept of commitment, however, has led only to its unidimensional operationalization. To improve the retail relationship quality operationalization, this paper seeks to provide theoretical and empirical support that calculative and emotional commitment should be included as dimensions of relationship quality in addition to trust and satisfaction in the retail environment.Design methodology approach - Cross-sectional telephone interviews with members of a retail loyalty club were conducted in two waves. The first wave included 116 respondents to purify the measurement instrument. The second wave included 416 respondents to estimate the parameters in SEM.Findings - Empirical findings suggest that in the retail environment, relationship quality as a second-order factor influences emotional commitment, calculative commitment, and a combined construct of trust and satisfaction.Research limitations implications - The research is limited to members of a single do-it-yourself (DIY) retailer's loyalty club. Cross-retail industry and cross-country testing could potentially improve the proposed scale for measuring relationship quality in the retail sector.Practical implications - Although relatively abstract in its higher-order factor formation for daily managerial purposes, the paper attempts to discuss managerial implications from the retail point of view in a comprehensive and readable manner. By narrowing the focus to a particular sector and selected dimensions of the construct, the paper helps increase understanding of the central construct of relationship marketing to the managerial sphere.Originality value - An important contribution of this paper lies in the selection of dimensions that reflect the relationship quality construct in the retail environment; more specifically, the selection of calculative and emotional commitment. An historical overview of relationship quality studies in consumer markets also provides an opportunity to improve comprehension of the phenomena.
Dependent as they are on repeat business from customers, the awareness of a potentially continuing relationship between a seller and a buyer is of paramount importance to retailers. For this reason, ...it is not just the quality of goods and services being sold, but also the quality of customer relationships that should be of great concern to retailers in order for them to prosper in a highly competitive arena. As such, the construct of relationship quality has emerged as a strategy for retaining customers. Over the past decade, retail industry research has consistently converged on the concepts of trust, satisfaction, and commitment as the building blocks of this phenomenon. Being also aware of the fact that multichannel retailing is now becoming the standard approach, a perspective from market leading consumer electronics retailer, Big Bang, in the Central European country of Slovenia, shows in what ways concrete multichannel activities might positively trigger the building blocks of the relationship quality phenomenon.
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