Managing Customer Loyalty Behaviour of Repeated Customers Research Paper Sample

Introduction

Customer Loyalty can be considered as the behaviour of repeated customers, and customers that give good testimonials, ratings, or reviews. It is all about attracting right customers to buy, to buy often, and to buy in higher quantities and thus bringing even more customers.
Achieving customer loyalty can be done through offering customers with low interest rates, extended warranties, rebates, free offers or coupons and other incentive programs. Firms that are successful with their customer loyalty programs have happy returning customers whom are willing to purchase again and persuade others to use that firm’s products and services.
In this report, I am reviewing two articles on managing customer loyalty published in 2009 and 2010 respectively. These two articles are similar with this topic that are related and researched for different business research methods.

Research Design Characteristics

Research Objective(s) are goals that are to be achieved by conducting research.
Theory is a formal logical explanation of some event that includes predictions of how things relate to one another.
Hypotheses are formal statements of an unproven proposition that are empirically testable.
Variables are defined as anything that varies or changes from one distance to another and can exhibit differences in value, usually in magnitude or strength, or in direction.
Researcher control of Variables is a variable which is held constant in a research by observing only one of its levels.

Type of Research Design:

• Exploratory studies are usually a small scale research undertaken when there is insufficient information available on how similar problems have been solved before. Aims to gain a better understanding of environment within which the problem has occur.
• Descriptive studies are the study of variables and are quantitative. It can provide information about attitudes, behaviours, or other characteristics about a particular group.
• Causal/Explanatory Studies are with study how variable affects, or is responsible for, changes in another variable.

Data Collection Method:

• Communication methods such as questionnaires, interviewing and surveying of respondents to secure the desired information through their responses.
• Observation methods involves mechanical or human observation of the behavioural patterns of people, objects and occurrences as they are witnessed which takes place during a consumption or buying situation.
• Research Environment can be both virtual and non-virtual. It is a tool, a process or a system that inter-operates to enhance and facilitate research processes with or without institutional boundaries. 

Time Dimension

• Cross-sectional Dimensional studies are when various segments of a population are sampled and data are collected at a single moment in time.
• Longitudinal Dimensional studies collect data at more than one point in time, thus allowing analysis of response to continue and change over time.

Critique

Article One critique General information about the article:

The first article for exploring the concept of customer loyalty is titled “Managing customer loyalty through the mediating role of satisfaction in the DIY retail loyalty program”, written by Patrick Vesel and Vesna Zabkar (2009). The research paper is aimed to investigate the phenomena of customer loyalty programs employed within the retail environment. The research work as focused upon DIY retail sectors that offer different goods and services to the customers. In order to collect data in the research work, a telephonic interview with a sample of 416 respondents has been considered within the research work. On the basis of collected data in the research process, an imperial qualitative analysis of the data is undertaken within the data analysis process. In this analysis, customers’ loyalty, satisfaction, and loyalty programs undertaken by the management of the organization have been undertaken as the reflecting variables. Among such variables, the intensity and type of customer loyalty program of the organization can be considered as the controlled viable which can be regulated by the management of the organization. The remaining variables, i.e. the level of loyalty shown by the customers and their satisfaction are the uncontrollable variable which can be varied as per the changes in the controlled variables. As per the findings of the paper, the quality of personal interaction of the company with the customers does not have a direct impact on the customer’s loyalty. However, the personal interaction of the company affects the satisfaction level pursued by the customer, which is a major determinant of the loyalty of the customer with the organization (Vesel and Zabkar 2009).

Critical analysis of different aspects of the research article:

The objective of the research work is quite comprehensive as they focus on customer satisfaction and loyalty. There is no specific dimension of satisfaction defined in the aims and objectives of the research work. A customer can achieve satisfaction in various perspectives such as prices, value-added services, quality of products and services, and free gifts and discount offers. In the paper, customer satisfaction has dealt in the generalized context, which makes the topic comprehensive and wide.
The research method used in the research process is quite well designed effectively. In the paper, the interview method has been used for retrieving some intensive and related primary information for this research work. In this method, a telephonic interview was conducted with a sample of 416 people. This sample size is quite comprehensive for the purpose of exploring the research context in the most effective manner. Along with this, the interview done with the respondents has revealed some intensive qualitative information related to consumer trust and satisfaction of customers (Vesel and Zabkar 2009). This information is used for the purpose of measuring the perception of respondents regarding the relationship between the Quality of interaction of the company with the customer and the level of brand loyalty pursued by the customers. This measure is quite appropriate and effective for the purpose of exploring the viability of a generalized phenomenon i.e. customer satisfaction and brand loyalty as it provides ample information and different point of view regarding a particular issue or problem. However, form the critical point of view, the paper should have also included some quantitative data for the purpose of investigating the research objective. For this purpose, there should have been some efforts for collecting quantitative information related to the research context with the help of some surveys through the questionnaire method.
Along with this, secondary data have also been included in this research paper, which is enhancing the comprehensiveness of the research results. On the basis of findings and analysis of both the data, the paper has reflected that the quality of personal interaction of the company cast a positive impact over satisfaction level pursued by the customers and consequently over brand loyalty pursued by them (Vesel and Zabkar 2009).
In all the entire paper can be analyzed as critically good in terms of data collection, and results of the research paper.

Article Two critique

General information about the article:

Another important article undertaken for critical analysis is titled “Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty on the Internet”. The research explores intensive research undertaken by Jose Alberto Castaneda (2010) over two different outlets of Carrefour and related 400 different cases. The paper is aimed to reflect the relationship between satisfaction and customer loyalty of customers in an online context. The research work is aimed to investigate the relationship between these two perspectives with the help of an in-depth theoretical and empirical review of different cases. After having an analysis of the collected data, the paper has concluded that the involvement of the customer with the organization is one of the major factors which lead to enhance customer satisfaction with the organization. The research paper has identified that the loyalty of the customer becomes the root cause of the high involvement of customers with the organization (Castaneda 2010).

Critical analysis of different aspects of the research article:

The research paper is having a precise and focused aim or purpose. The aim of the paper is to find out the relationship between two predetermined phenomena, namely Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in the special reference of online stores of different retail business organizations. In relation to this, this aim is quite directive for the research process, which has set some specific direction to the research work.
In the context of the methodology selected in the research paper, some critical arguments can be made. For the purpose of retrieving some effective and relevant information, a computer-assisted telephone interview method is used in the article. The method used in the article is quite a time consuming and costly. Along with this, the lack of direct and face to face interaction with the respondents is also a critical issue for the researcher as it decreases the credibility and reliability of the answers provided to the respondent. However, the method allowed the researcher to reveal a huge amount of data (Castaneda 2010).
In addition to this, for the purpose of investigating the research context in a more comprehensive manner, a literature review is undertaken as the secondary data collection method. In this method, there are a number of different authentic and reliable academic sources of information are reviewed in the research paper. The usage of quality and reliable academic sources has made the research process more authentic and reliable.
In order to accomplish the research purpose, a simple or linear relationship between two prime variables i.e. customer satisfaction and loyalty is checked by formulating some crucial hypothesizes, which have been checked out with the help of the trend revealed through the interview process. On the basis of the entire analysis made within the research paper, it can be revealed that there is a positive relationship between customer loyalty and level of satisfaction pursued by them. In other words, the higher the level of satisfaction pursued by the individual higher will be the brand loyalty of customers with the company (Castaneda 2010). In order to justify the results of the interview, the paper has reflected an empirical discussion over the viability of the finding. In the discussion arguments made by the author has also been supported with the help of different theoretical pieces of evidence, which is aimed to make the results of the findings more effective and evidential.
In addition to this, from the perspective of the presentation of the data also the research paper is attaining a favorable position. The paper is using easy, effective, and academic language, which is making the research work more effective and authentic. The findings of the research work are quite crucial and relevant in the existing business environment which quite competitive and dynamic. The implication of the research world is so practical that it can be applied in the real-life in the most effective manner (Castaneda 2010).
In this way, on the basis of the critical review of the paper, it can be considered that the paper is written and presented quite effectively and contribute to filling the knowledge gap in the related field.

Appendix

Table of Research Design A1

Table of Research Design A2

References

1. Patrick Vesel and Vesna Zabkar (2009),” Managing customer loyalty through the mediating role of satisfaction in the DIY retail loyalty program,” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 16(2009) 396-406
2. Jose Alberto Castaneda(2010), “Relationship Between Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty on the Internet,” Journal of Business and Psychology(2011) 26:371-383