The Role of Consumer Confidence in Creating Customer Loyalty

Ou Y., de Vries L., Wiesel T., Verhoef P.

Research article (journal) | Peer reviewed

Abstract

How can firms retain customers during recessions? To answer this question, we investigate the moderating role of consumer confidence (CC) on the effects of three types of crucial customer loyalty strategies. These strategies are value equity (VE), brand equity (BE), and relationship equity (RE), collectively called customer equity drivers (CEDs). We build on economics and marketing theories to develop our hypotheses on the concerned moderating role. A meta-analysis is used to synthesize the multilevel results of 13 service industries and to test the hypotheses. In addition, we use several robustness checks to validate the findings of the meta-analysis. The results consistently show that CC partly influences the effects of CEDs on customer loyalty and this influence varies across industries. These findings suggest that managers in service industries should consider CC as an important criterion for effectively adjusting customer loyalty strategies to their specific situation. Specifically, during recessions, when CC is relatively low, VE is effective for retaining customers, but this is more apparent for noncontractual settings than for contractual settings. Also, BE is more effective but only for noncontractual firms. © The Author(s) 2013.

Details about the publication

JournalJournal of Service Research
Volume17
Issue3
Page range339-354
StatusPublished
Release year2014
Language in which the publication is writtenEnglish
DOI10.1177/1094670513513925
Link to the full texthttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=84892548128&origin=inward
Keywordsconsumer confidence; contractual settings; customer equity drivers; customer loyalty; meta-analysis

Authors from the University of Münster

de Vries, Lisette
Professur für Wertbasiertes Marketing (Prof. Wiesel)
Wiesel, Thorsten
Chair of Value-Based Marketing (iwm)