Advancing research on loyalty programs:a future research agenda

Artículo de publicación ISIDespite the growing literature on loyalty program (LP) research, many questions remain underexplored. Driven by advancements in information technology, marketing analytics, and consumer interface platforms (e.g., mobile devices), there have been many recent developments in LP practices around the world. They impose new challenges and create exciting opportunities for future LP research. The main objective of this paper is to identify missing links in the literature and to craft a future research agenda to advance LP research and practice. Our discussion focuses on three key areas: (1) LP designs, (2) Assessment of LP performance, and (3) Emerging trends and the impact of new technologies. We highlight several gaps in the literature and outline research opportunities in each area

Refocusing Loyalty Programs in the Era of Big Data: A Societal Lens Paradigm

Big data and technological change have enabled loyalty programs to become more prevalent and complex. How these developments influence society has been overlooked, both in academic research and in practice. We argue why this issue is important and propose a framework to refocus loyalty programs in the era of big data through a societal lens. We focus on three aspects of the societal lens-inequality, privacy, and sustainability. We discuss how loyalty programs in the big data era impact each of these societal factors, and then illustrate how, by adopting this societal lens paradigm, researchers and practitioners can generate insights and ideas that address the challenges and opportunities that arise from the interaction between loyalty programs and society. Our goal is to broaden the perspectives of researchers and managers so they can enhance loyalty programs to address evolving societal needs

The exploration of hotel reference prices under dynamic pricing scenarios and different forms of competition

The reference price, used by consumers to evaluate market prices, has tremendous relevance in dynamic pricing. Reconciling current heterogeneous theories and studies on reference prices, this paper analyzes the impact of hotel price sequences on consumers’ reference prices through a lab and a field experiment. Experiment 1 tests the importance of retrospective price evaluations, while Experiment 2 evaluates the impact of three forms of competition: (i) simultaneous behavior, where firms adjust prices simultaneously; (ii) leader-follower behavior, where one firm acts as the leader; and (iii) independent behavior, where each player takes its rival’s strategy as given and seeks to maximize its own profits. The results show that consumers decrease their reference price when competing hotels adjust their prices simultaneously. Relevant managerial implications are drawn for the hospitality industry, which is affected by the presence of online travel agencies that announce the daily rates offered by each competitor

Multi-tier Loyalty Programs to Stimulate Customer Engagement

Customers differ in their purchase behavior, profitability, attitude toward the firm, and so on. These differences between customers have led to numerous firms introducing multi-tier loyalty programs. A multi-tier loyalty program explicitly distinguishes between customers by means of hierarchical tiers (e.g. Silver, Gold, Platinum) and assigns customers to different tiers based on their past purchase behavior. Next, customers in different tiers are provided varying levels of tangible rewards and intangible benefits, which are potentially powerful instruments to stimulate customer engagement. In this chapter, we focus on the design and effectiveness of such multi-tier loyalty programs. Building on loyalty program and customer prioritization research, we discuss whether, why, and how multi-tier loyalty programs are effective (or not) in influencing customer behavior, thereby enhancing customer engagement and financial performance

The Impact of Brand Quality on Shareholder Wealth

This study examines the impact of brand quality on three components of shareholder wealth: stock returns, systematic risk, and idiosyncratic risk. The study finds that brand quality enhances shareholder wealth insofar as unanticipated changes in brand quality are positively associated with stock returns and negatively related to changes in idiosyncratic risk. However, unanticipated changes in brand quality can also erode shareholder wealth because they have a positive association with changes in systematic risk. The study introduces a contingency theory view to the marketing-finance interface by analyzing the moderating role of two factors that are widely followed by investors. The results show an unanticipated increase (decrease) in current-period earnings enhances (depletes) the positive impact of unanticipated changes in brand quality on stock returns and mitigates (enhances) their deleterious effects on changes in systematic risk. Similarly, brand quality is more valuable for firms facing increasing competition (i.e., unanticipated decreases in industry concentration). The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and across alternative models. The authors conclude by discussing the nuanced implications of their findings for shareholder wealth, reporting brand quality to investors, and its use in employee evaluation