Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Perceptions of Justice after Recovery Efforts in Internet Purchasing: the Impact on Consumer Trust and Loyalty toward Retailing Sites and Online Shopping in General

The main goal of this paper is to extend the traditional theoretical model of service recovery to the online purchasing environment by investigating the impact of perceptions of justice after recovery efforts toward unsatisfactory Internet purchasing on customer trust and loyalty. The authors develop a theoretical model focusing on interrelationships among complaint handling evaluations, quality of prior experience, familiarity, trust, perceived value and loyalty. To test this model, 3,339 customers from all over Brazil who had been engaged in complaint processes about online purchases within the past 6 months answered an online questionnaire. Findings indicate that interpersonal treatment by the e-retailer improves consumer perceptions of the online recovery process. Consumer trust in the firm's website is strongly influenced by satisfaction with complaint handling, familiarity and the quality of prior experiences with the website, while consumer trust in Internet shopping is mainly affected by familiarity and the quality of prior experiences with Internet purchasing. These two dimensions of trust are distinct and represent discrete facets, as they do not impact each other. Moreover, repurchase intentions and word-of-mouth communication are influenced by consumer trust

Exploring Relationship Among Customer Dissatisfaction, Complaints, And Loyalty In The Virtualized Environment: Roles Of Advanced Services

Various studies support how satisfied customers become loyal customers by investigating attitudes and behavior, while fewer studies have examined links among dissatisfaction, complaints, and loyalty, particularly in the virtualized environment. By applying justice dimension, the purpose of this study is to explore i) how different types of justice affect customer dissatisfaction; ii) how the level of customer dissatisfaction affects willingness to complain/complaining behavior; iii) how willingness to complain/complaining behavior affects repeat purchase behavior based on how complaints are resolved by a company; and iv) how repeat purchase behavior affects loyalty. Proposed relationships are investigated with effects of advanced services (i.e., 2Is, Interactivity and Individualization) and product category that are applied in the virtualized environment. By applying various statistical analyses, this study provides managerial and theoretical implications and offers suggestions to e-businesses

A bibliometric investigation of service failure literature and a research agenda

Purpose - This research studies the citations made in service failure literature, and assesses the knowledge construction of this region of exploration to date. Design/methodology/approach - The bibliometric investigation assesses 416 service failure articles in business associated research. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is employed to uncover the scope of the scholarly impacts that have helped understand the nature of the service failure literature. The establishment of knowledge in the service failure literature is revealed by analysing co-citation data to identify significant topical impacts. Findings - The theoretical model combines five areas with significant propositions for the future improvement of service failure as an area of investigation. The most important research themes in-service failure literature are service failure, service failure communication, the recovery process, recovery offer and intention. Research limitations/implications - Potential research concentrating on the service failure literature could use search terms improved from the literature review, or use a comparable approach whereby a board of well-informed scholars approved the keywords used. Practical implications - This paper is beneficial for any reader who is interested in understanding the components of the perception of justice and recovery and how it improves repurchase intention. Originality/value - The study seeks to influence resource and recovery-based concepts and utilises the five supporting knowledge groups to suggest a plan for future research that fills existing gaps and offers the possibility of expanding and enhancing the service failure literature

Examining the impact of service recovery resilience in the context of product replacement: the roles of perceived procedural and interactional justice

Purpose Given increasing customer expectations and disturbances to product returns management, capabilities such as supply chain resilience (SCR) can complement service recovery strategies in retail supply chains. This study utilizes procedural justice theory (PJT) to conceptualize service recovery resilience as a capability that allows firms to meet customer requirements when dealing with disruptions, and empirically investigates its impact on procedural and interactional justice and customer outcomes (i.e. satisfaction and loyalty) in the context of product replacement. Design/methodology/approach This research employs two scenario-based experiments using a sample of 368 customers to explore the outcomes associated with service recovery resilience. Findings The investigation shows more satisfied and loyal customers when a retail supply chain can overcome service recovery challenges through SCR. The study shows that customers evaluate not only the process itself, but also their interactions with the retailer. Specifically, procedural justice and interactional justice have a significant influence on these relationships. Originality/value This study proposes service recovery resilience as a concept that bridges service recovery theory with supply chain strategy in the unique context of product replacement. Further, this study also notes how information enhances customer satisfaction with the retailer's effort to address disturbances in the recovery process. Finally, this study informs managers on the capabilities needed to face new customers' needs

Determinants of Customer Loyalty Towards Prepaid Mobile Cellular Services in Malaysia

This research focuses on the determinant factors of customer loyalty of the prepaid segment in the telecommunication industry. Customer is important in the telecommunication industry especially in the prepaid segment where there is no contractual relationship between customer and service provider. This study examines the relationships between customer satisfaction, service quality, perceived value and trust with customer loyalty. This research also examines the role of customer satisfaction as a mediator factor and switching cost as a moderator factor towards customer loyalty. The consideration of putting both mediator and moderator factors in this research allows a more precise descriptions on the relationship between all the variables mentioned and the outcome of the research. Hypothesized relationships are tested using survey responses from a sample of 398 respondents. The study sample was the students studying in Malaysian Universities. Results revealed a positive relationship between customer support service, service reliability, emotional value and trust with customer loyalty. Apart from that, customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between various determinant factors and customer loyalty. Switching cost does not moderate the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The results reported in this research are useful to both industry and academics in Malaysia, by providing relevant empirical data about customer loyalty in the telecommunication Industry. Results are compared with earlier findings and implications for future research are discussed. The results should be able to recommend the strategy in customer loyalty especially in the prepaid mobile services. This study could also be of interest to other on-line services firm, which shares the same characteristics with mobile phone service provider

Understanding the Impact of Service Failure and Recovery Justice on Consumers’ Satisfaction and Repurchase Intention

This research attempts to explore the impacts of different types of justice and their interactions on the satisfaction toward service failure recovery. We attempt to classify justices into hygiene, motivator, or asymmetric variable, based on the concept of asymmetric effect and two factors theory proposed by Herzberg. Specifically, we predict that procedural and distributive justices are hygiene or performance factor and interpersonal justice is motivator. In addition, based on expectancy-disconfirmation theory (EDT), we also attempt to understand the interaction between paired justices by arguing that motivator can generate more effect when hygiene factor or performance factors meet initial expectation. An experiment, with 3x2x2 between-subjects factorial design consisting of three factors to represent different levels of justice provided by online retailer, will be conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. A two-step approach will be used to (1) confirmation the types (hygiene, performance, or motivator) that each justice dimension belongs to, (2) understand the impact of each justice on satisfaction, and (3) test whether motivator will generate more effect when hygiene and performance factor are satisfied

E-retailing ethics and its impact on customer satisfaction and repurchase intention: a cultural and commitment-trust theory perspective

Purpose: The theoretical understanding of online shopping behaviour has received much attention. Less focus has been given to online retailing ethics. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of online retailing ethics. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a survey amongst a sample representative of universities across Egypt. In total, 310 questionnaire were collected and analysed using structure equation modelling using WarpPLS. Findings: The results indicate that the consumer perceptions of online retailing ethics (CPORE) as a second-order construct is composed of five constructs (security, privacy, non-deception, fulfilment/ reliability, and service recovery) and strongly predictive of online consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, the authors find a significant mediating effect of trust, and commitment on the relationship between CPORE and customer satisfaction. The results also show that individualism had moderate effects on the relationship between CPORE and customer satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, power distance had no significant effect. Research limitations/implications: Despite the contributions of this study some research limitations need acknowledgment. First, this study employed a convenience sample. The authors encourage future studies to use random sampling of general consumers. The ethics literature identifies some factors which influence ethical judgments of consumers (e.g. sex, age, and education). Such research could identify how each variable, individually and cooperatively, impacts consumer ethical evaluations of online retailing. The authors did not collect data from non-internet shoppers because the focus of this study was online consumers referring to their latest purchase online. It may be an interesting extension, however, to test this conceptual model for other populations like non-online consumers. Originality/value: This study developed and empirically tested a comprehensive model of CPORE with its multidimensional constructs and evaluated its impact on both consumer satisfaction and repurchase intention via trust and commitment