Relationship intention and relationship quality as predictors of clothing retail customers’ loyalty

Retailers endeavour to establish and maintain strong relationships with customers in order to build customer loyalty. Unfortunately, such endeavours are not always successful as not all retail customers reciprocate retailers’ relationship efforts. Customers’ intentions to engage in relationships with retailers (i.e. relationship intentions) should thus be the starting point in building customer loyalty. Moreover, customers’ perceptions of the strength of their relationship with a retailer (i.e. relationship quality) should also be considered when building customer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to determine whether clothing retail customers’ relationship intentions and relationship quality, individually and in combination, predict their loyalty to clothing retailers. Data were collected from 511 respondents in South Africa’s greater Tshwane metropolitan area. From a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, it was found that clothing retail customers’ relationship intentions and relationship quality are individually, and in combination, predictors of their loyalty to the retailer. Results furthermore indicate that relationship quality mediates the relationship between relationship intention and customer loyalty. The findings highlight the importance of first determining customers’ relationship intentions, and then reinforcing positive perceptions of relationship quality when building customer loyalty.     

零售商品牌资产管理策略体系构建——基于多维理论视角的探讨

零售商品牌资产的管理和创建是零售企业获取持续竞争优势的关键,但关于零售商品牌资产管理策略的理论指导并不系统和丰富。因此,本文从零售商品牌营销管理、顾客情绪管理、顾客体验管理、顾客关系管理、顾客忠诚管理5个多维理论视角,对零售商品牌资产管理的策略体系进行了构建,以期为零售商品牌资产的创建过程和途径提供丰富的管理视野与思路。     

Unlocking the transformative potential of customer data in retailing

Retailers collect, process, and use large amounts of data about customers: what they buy, how they buy, when they buy – and when customer loyalty cards are used – who buys the product or service. The use of customer data within the customer relationship management (CRM) framework has largely remained one sided. The potential of customer data for the benefit of the customer’s well-being still needs to be addressed. Reverse use of customer data, i.e. the process of firms converting customer data into information that is meaningful for the customers, extends attention toward using customer data for the benefit of the customer. In addition, selling goods to customers retailers can revise customer data into relevant and meaningful information that can support their well-being. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to identify and illustrate the transformative potential of the reverse use of customer data in retailing. This is achieved by reviewing literature on CRM, S-D logic, and transformative consumer research, and conducting a case study of a food retailer using point-of-sale data to provide customers with information about the healthfulness of their food purchases. Anonymous customer feedback data is collected and analyzed, and as a result, the transformative potential of customer data is reflected through five themes: self-monitoring, enhanced diet, food literacy, peace of mind, and beyond food healthfulness. These themes illustrate customers’ well-being outcomes resulting from reverse use of customer data.     

The competitive impact of service process improvement: Examining customers’ waiting experiences in retail markets

In this paper, we investigate the impact of a service process improvement in front-end retail operations on the waiting experiences of shared customers, that is, those customers who patronize a retailer as well as its competitors. Our findings from two studies—a field study and a controlled laboratory experiment—suggest that while customers’ waiting time perceptions are independent across competing firms, their waiting time satisfaction is interdependent. As a result, the impact of a retailer's service improvement initiative that reduces waiting times is not merely local to the retailer but propagates to its competitors through its shared customers. Specifically, such an improvement not only raises shared customers’ satisfaction with the focal retailer, it also concurrently lowers their satisfaction with the retailer's competitors. By implication, current approaches that assess the impact of a service process improvement by just measuring the difference in customer satisfaction before and after the improvement may be underestimating the true impact of such improvements.     

Once more, with feeling: Empathy and technology in customer care

Information technology is reshaping relationships between companies and customers, often bringing benefits to both. The unfettered use of technology, however, can erode customer care. For a company to care for customers, its managers and front-line employees must listen empathetically to what they have to say. But a rash of ‘innovations’ aimed primarily at reducing costs has made many companies opaque to their customers, who are—as a consequence—inadequately served and increasingly frustrated. Equally damaging is the resulting estrangement of employees from customers, a separation that dampens the empathy upon which true care for customers depends. As a number of innovative companies have shown, though, technology need not necessarily sour relations between businesses and those they serve. Indeed, technology can actually enrich them if senior managers (1) affirm their commitment to active, empathetic involvement with customers; (2) understand the ways in which current procedures and systems mediate interactions with customers; and (3) promote the deployment of social networks and other technologies to help customers tell their stories, and to enable workers and managers alike to hear them. Only when employees can step into their customers’ shoes can companies add authenticity to the claim: “We care for you.”     

The impact of customer-specific marketing expenses on customer retention and customer profitability

We study the effects of customer-specific marketing expenses on customer retention and customer profitability in a business-to-business setting. Using data from a company providing hygiene services, we look at the impact of a hitherto unstudied type of expense targeted at individual customer relationships: the offering of free equipment to customers. The data allow tracking the activities performed in more than 4,500 customer relationships over a period of 4 years. Retention rates are higher for customers targeted with free equipment, but this effect results from an interaction with customer size. First-order dynamic panel data analyses show that the impact of targeted marketing expenses on customer dollar profit is positive for large customers, but there is no effect for smaller customers. Thus, targeted marketing expenses seem to be a tool for relationship maintenance rather than customer development: they help in retaining large customers that generate more profit, but they do not seem to work in developing new customers into larger, more profitable ones.     

Customer Loyalty and Privacy on the Web

ABSTRACT

This study examines from simulation the effects of the privacy sensitivity of customers, the personalization practices or standards of retailers and the difficulty in locating favorable sites on the loyalty of consumers to a Web site. The key finding of the study is that customer privacy sensitivity is a critical success factor that significantly impacts loyalty to a retailer. Customers have higher loyalty to sites that request the least information, while they have lower loyalty to sites that request the most information. Web retailers considering expanded personalization of products or services to customers, through increased personal information, need to rethink their practices. The study also found that difficulty in locating a favorable site is a success factor that impacts retailer loyalty, and that customers have higher loyalty to difficult to locate favorable sites on the Web. These findings are important at a time when consumers are empowered with Web technology to immediately shop competitor sites.     

A cross cultural investigation of retailers commitment to CSR and customer citizenship behaviour: The role of ethical standard and value relevance

Factors promoting customer citizenship behaviour are of great interest to both practitioners and academics because customer citizenship behaviour is a notable driver of business success. This study examines the role of value relevance and ethical standards in shaping consumers perceptions about retailers commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its effects on customer citizenship behaviour under different cultural contexts. It also examines the critical role of personality in shaping citizenship behaviours. Data from the UK and Egyptian consumers were collected and analysed. Data were collected from 1757 consumers and analysed using structural equation modelling (PLS/SEM). The findings indicated that value relevance and ethical standards are key drivers of retailer commitment to CSR, which in turns lead to customer citizenship behaviour. Moreover, the multiple-group analysis revealed that the degree of effect of these variables on customer citizenship behaviour differs between customers in Egypt and the UK. Specifically, the effect of value relevance and ethical standards on retailer commitment to CSR is stronger for the Egyptian customers than for the UK customers, while, CSR has stronger effects on customer citizenship behaviour for the British consumers than for the Egyptian customers. The managerial and theoretical implications were identified.     

The Relationships Among Manager-, Employee-, and Customer-Company Identification: Implications For Retail Store Financial Performance

Based on the premise of an interpersonal “chain of influence” with respect to organizational identification, we posit a relationship between company managers, employees, and customers with respect to organizational identification with the retailer. Specifically, we hypothesize that the level of a store manager's identification with the retailer is positively related to the level of their store employees’ identification with the retailer, which in turn is positively related to the level of customers’ identification with the retailer, which results in increased levels of store financial performance. We investigate these relationships using data from 306 retail stores within a single retail chain.     

Can a positive mood counterbalance weak arguments in personal sales conversations?

In a personal sales conversation between a customer and a salesperson, the salesperson usually presents arguments for purchase alternatives to the customer. In addition to the quality of the presented arguments, the customer's mood is also expected to have effects on the customers’ product evaluation. In order to analyze mood and argument strength effects, we develop a theoretical model and conduct an empirical study based on a 2×2 experimental design. The results of the study show that the customers’ mood has both a direct and an indirect effect through the customers’ perception of the strength of the arguments provided by the salesperson on product evaluation.     

The link between customer satisfaction and price sensitivity: An investigation of retailing industry in Taiwan

Are customers less likely to seek bargains once they are satisfied with a product and service? This study examines the relationship between customer satisfaction and price sensitivity. Specifically, satisfaction is divided into economic satisfaction derived from tangible products and social satisfaction provided by service encounters. This survey of 248 retailer–consumer dyads shows that economic satisfaction is negatively associated with price sensitivity. However, social satisfaction is positively related with price sensitivity, especially for female customers and customers with high patronage frequency. Interpersonal relationships emphasized in the Chinese collectivist societies tend to influence customers' price sensitivity. These findings have many implications for researchers and practitioners in the retail sector.     

Linking Order Fulfillment Performance to Referrals in Online Retailing: An Empirical Analysis

Referral management for online retailers is a strategically important activity, as referrals offer a highly cost‐effective method of customer acquisition. In fact, online customers mention referrals as the second‐most common reason for choosing to shop at a particular retailer, second only to search engine suggestions. However, while online retailers are able to improve their visibility on search engines through focused keyword insertions, they are often unable to pinpoint the drivers of referral behavior among their customers. The current research examines the relationship between two key dimensions of online retailing: order fulfillment cycle times and referral behavior. Employing a theory of customer appraisal and empirically testing the ensuing model using structural equation modeling, we find that excellent order fulfillment is instrumental in generating referrals for the online retailer, even after factoring in product quality.     

Valuing customers for social network services

In the current Internet environment, many online service companies based on community factors (networks) produce and sell new types of digital products. For example, SNS (social network service) companies now sell customers digital decorative products for the adornment of online avatars. Not only do individual customers consume these digital products, but they also exchange them as gifts in their local neighborhoods. While previous studies on customer valuation (e.g. CLTV, RFM, etc.) focus on some important issues for identifying valuable customers, the literature does not resolve issues related to the effects on customer value of products purchased as gifts for another person. This study attempts to verify empirically the effects of two representative social network properties (tie strength and the number of ties) on customer monetary value.This study selects 2615 customers from a South Korean SNS website who enrolled on the site on the same day. Data include diverse purchase-related information, social network properties in terms of gift-giving for six months, and demographic information. The primary results of this study are as follows. First, the proposed model, which includes social network properties, has a great deal more explanatory power than the baseline model — the RFM-based customer value model. Second, tie strength and the number of ties in a gift-giving network increase customer value. Third, tie strength has a more profound impact on customer value than does the number of ties. The results of this study theoretically expand the domain of customer valuation studies due to the inclusion of social network properties, and suggest important practical implications for some online SNS companies in their efforts to find valuable customers and improve customer value.     

“If you loved our product”: Do conditional review requests harm retailer loyalty?

Online retailers frequently solicit reviews from customers who have recently purchased their products or services. This research examines how consumers react to conditional requests—wherein a retailer explicitly asks them to consider their experience but to only leave a review if this experience was favorable—versus more neutral unconditional requests. The provision of conditional requests is widespread, presumably because retailers believe that such requests will yield more positive reviews. Irrespective of whether these potential benefits materialize, the present research demonstrates that the consequences of conditional requests on customer loyalty (i.e., retailer engagement and repeat purchase behavior) are uniformly negative and surprisingly expansive. Six experiments with over 3,000 participants reveal that customers who receive conditional (vs. unconditional) requests are subsequently less loyal to the retailer, whom they perceive as manipulative and untrustworthy. This research also shows that easily implementable message modifications can attenuate (although not necessarily eliminate) the adverse effects of conditional requests on customer loyalty. Substantively, this work highlights how the messaging used in a review request affects customers’ inferences as well as their later judgments and behaviors. Managerially, the findings should exhort online retailers to exercise caution before sending conditional review requests given the risk of reputational harm.     

Managing Complaints to Improve Customer Profitability

In this study, the authors aim to understand whether, to what extent, and under what circumstances, organizational responses to customer complaints improve customer profitability. To do so, they build upon the congruence approach and propose a contingency framework in which the effectiveness of three organizational responses to customer complaints (timeliness, compensation and communications) in improving customer profitability is contingent upon the strength of the relationship and the type of failure. The framework is tested empirically in the financial services industry applying latent class techniques to longitudinal data for a sample of complaining customers. The results reveal that: (1) different complaint-handling initiatives affect customer profitability differently for each of the four segments of complaining customers that are obtained; (2) these heterogeneous responses to complaint handling are explained by differences in the orientation of the relationship and in the failure context; and (3) complaint-handling initiatives are more (less) effective at improving customer profitability when the benefits they offer strongly (poorly) match the benefits sought by customers in each segment to recover from the failure. These results contribute to a better theoretical understanding of customers’ heterogeneous responses to complaint handling and offer managerial recommendations to allocate marketing resources across alternative complaint-handling strategies to improve profitability.     

Does irritation induced by charitable direct mailings reduce donations?

Charities rely mainly on direct mailings to attract the attention of potential donors. Individuals may feel irritated by these mailings, in particular when they receive many mailings. This might harm the revenues charities receive from their mailing activities. Moreover, target selection by charities likely results in many mailings being sent to the best donors, and hence they might become most irritated. As such, irritation with direct mailings could well be endogenously determined. To ensure exogenous variation in irritation, we performed a unique controlled field experiment in cooperation with five of the largest charities in the Netherlands. Our analysis reveals that direct mailings do result in irritation, but surprisingly, this irritation affects neither stated nor actual donating behavior.     

Exploring the role of extrovert-introvert customers’ personality prototype as a driver of customer engagement: Does relationship duration matter?

Drawing on social exchange theory, the current study examines new drivers and their associated processes of customer engagement. In spirit, the study tests the direct and indirect impacts of the extraversion–introversion personality trait on customer engagement. The study takes into consideration the contingency role of time by testing the moderating role of relationship duration. Results demonstrate that the more extraverted customers are, the more they are likely to engage with service firms. Further, extraversion is positively related to customer–employee interaction, which in turn leads to more utilitarian and hedonic values perceived by customers. Both types of value, then, induce higher customer engagement behaviors in terms of customer referrals, knowledge sharing, and social-influence. Findings demonstrate that relationship duration moderates some of the examined relationships. The current study contributes to the literature by extending the knowledge on customer engagement's predisposition and social causes.     

Managing a Global Retail Brand in Different Markets: Meta-Analyses of Customer Responses to Service Encounters

This study investigates how retailers can leverage their brand to shape customers’ satisfaction with service encounters. It develops and tests hypotheses about how brand, store, and consumer factors moderate customer responses to experience clues during retail service encounters. Six meta-regression analyses synthesize and compare results from 842 satisfaction equations describing customers’ encounters with a global retailer operating 400 stores in 32 countries. The results show how customers weigh their perceptions of service encounters differently depending on brand, store, and consumer factors. In markets where customers believe the retailer has high holistic brand quality, they place less weight on experience clues within the store. In markets where customers believe the retailer’s service brand promise, they place more weight on in-store experience clues. In markets where the retailer promises utilitarian value, customers weigh functional experience clues more heavily. In markets with an online purchasing channel, the effect of experience clues common to offline and online store environments is magnified, and unique clues are diminished. In addition, customers heavily weigh experience clues that fit their goals. In general, retail success factors include high brand quality (which makes customers more forgiving), a service brand promise that is mirrored in the store image (which makes customers attend to the experience clues aligned with them), and the careful monitoring and managing of retail touchpoints (to customize experience clues to each market). In this way, retailers can use customer-based strategies to effectively design and manage their global retail brand in different markets.     

The Effects of Channel Experiences and Direct Marketing on Customer Retention in Multichannel Settings

In customer relationship management (CRM), it is critical for managers to understand how and when customers terminate their relationships with the company in order to make more accurate predictions for CLV. However, in many non-contractual settings, customer churn is not easily observed, which presents difficulty for estimating customer retention. In this research, we present a framework for estimating multichannel customer relationship dynamics in a non-contractual setting that flexibly allows for relationship revival and investigates the effects of different channel experiences and marketing communication on retention and profitability. We use a multi-segment, multivariate hidden Markov modeling framework to model three managerially relevant customer behaviors: purchase amount, purchase incidence, and channel choice. Using data from a multichannel clothing retailer, we uncover two latent relationship states that customers migrate to and from — an active state and an inactive state characterized by different levels of purchase frequency, responsiveness to marketing, and profitability. We find that an offline (retail-store) channel can be used to migrate customers from an inactive state to an active state, effectively serving the purpose of “education” or “revival,” whereas an online channel is most effective in keeping the existing active customers active, thus serving the purpose of “retention”. Using counterfactual analysis, we highlight an opportunity for the multichannel firm to optimize marketing strategies to dynamically manage and increase the retention and hence also the value of its customer base.