Authors: Erzsebet Hetesi; Zoltan Veres
A lot of research and the earlier developed models in the business to business marketing fieldaimed to describe and interpret customer loyalty, and many studies have focused on theantecedents and consequences of loyalty. We can observe a huge number of studies oncustomer satisfaction, customer loyalty and partnership. Most of the earlier studies on loyaltyhave concentrated on evidence of loyal behaviours, and tried to describe the determinants ofswitching behaviour. There have been studies of ?mental loyalty? which suggested thatperceptions, attitudes, and beliefs can determine the different forms of loyalty. While thedifferent contributions on loyalty have deepened knowledge of its forms and determinants,they failed to analyse the development of loyalty over time, not explaining how and why thesedifferent forms of loyalty emerge. Oliver suggested defining customer loyalty as a conditionof strong involvement in repurchase, and Costabile published a dynamic model of customerloyalty, useful for loyalty management purposes, both in business to business and in businessto consumer markets. On the other hand, there are academic sources on proposedmethodology for industrial market segmentation based on the value of the customer to theseller, and the value of the seller to the customer (cf. Glynn). As the research area of loyaltywas getting wider and wider, the previous ? seemingly obvious ? statements becameincreasingly uncertain, and the modelling of loyalty more difficult.The paper presents a survey carried out on customer loyalty in the corrugated paper industry.The concept of the research project was to test the dynamic model of customer loyalty (theloyalty-building as a process), and to refine the methodology of loyalty-based industrialmarket segmentation. The methodology used had two stages of qualitative research:. the firstwas an expert focus group with the competent members of the manufacturer, and in thesecond step there were interviews with customers. After the qualitative explorative phase theproject continued with a quantitative loyalty-attitude research. This latter served, on the onehand to test the findings of the qualitative interviews, and on the other to deliver a clienttypologyon loyalty.
Journal: ( – )
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Publish Year: 2004
Conference: Copenhagen, Denmark (2004)