The importance of customer loyalty Literature review

The importance of customer loyalty - Literature review Example The study presents that every consumer desires to purchase a product from a brand that she/he perceives to have the best product features, images and of the best quality. It is these perceptions that bring about the products consumer loyalty. Brand loyalty begins with the purchase of the product for trials, and if the products quality is satisfactory, they become consistent in purchasing the product. Brand loyalty is the consumers repeated intention or behavior to continually repurchase the commodity. Brand loyalty is defined as the strength of preference towards a brand than other available options. Brand loyalty is determined through repeat buying and the sensitivity of the price. There are six conditions, which define brand loyalty. These conditions can be summarized as follows; the biased product purchase behavior expressed for a long duration, and the purchase has had influence in consumer’s decision making over other alternative product. True brand loyalty only exists wh en a customer have a high preference towards the brand and is only confirmed by the repetitive purchase of the product. This loyalty is said to be of considerable significance to the company. With brand loyalty, consumers are not affected by the increase of prices. There are two approaches used in defining the loyalty construct; first is the behavioral one which suggested that the loyalty of a brand is only expressed when there is repeat purchase of commodity overtime. The other approach is the attitudinal perspective, which assumes that loyalty of a brand is not necessarily determined by the consistency of its purchase, and that repetitive product purchase must be accompanied by positive attitude towards the behavior. Therefore, brand behavior is a function of both attitudes and the consumer behavior. Established consumers or those who are loyal to a brand are likely to continue buying from the company regardless of price fluctuations of the product (Wang and Sidek, 2008). Therefor e, it is indispensable for a company to establish a strong relationship with the consumer through marketing strategies such as packaging, advertising their products and producing commodities of the right quantity and quality whish are of satisfactory to the consumer (Chi, Yeh and Yang 2009). Factors influencing the customer loyalty To start with is the product quality judgment. Product quality judgment is categorized in to two sub groups namely a) perceived quality and b) objective quality. Perceived product quality is considered as the consumer’s consistency purchase of the product or the benefit of a product after evaluation. It has also been defined as the recognition of a product by the user. Objective quality has been defined as the orientation of the product (Akbar and Parves, 2009). The difference between these two types of quality is that objective quality standard is predesigned by a product whilst perceived quality standard is the influence by internal and external attributes of a product, which in turn affect the consumer’s products evaluation. It has also been pointed out that in objective quality; the consumers utilize their experience and knowledge to grade the products advantages, durability and satisfaction (Armstrong and Kotler, 2009). Perceived quality is also defined as a consumer judgment on the overall cumulative and advantages. It is argued that perceived quality