Study on the dimensions of customer services industry loyalty

Šio straipsnio tyrimo objektu buvo pasirinktas paslaugų įmonių klientų lojalumas, kaip svarbus paslaugų teikimo įmonės konkurencinio pranašumo kūrimo šaltinis. Tyrimo tikslas: Statistiškai patvirtinti, kad paslaugų įmonių klientų lojalumas yra daugiamatė koncepcija, susidedanti iš vartotojo požiūrio sąlygoto lojalumo, gebėjimo pasipriešinti konkuruojantiems prekių (paslaugų) ženklams sąlygoto lojalumo, situacijos sąlygoto lojalumo, individo polinkio būti lojaliu sąlygoto lojalumo, o tarp minėtų atskirų dimensijų egzistuoja ryšys. Tyrimo metodas: Empiriniam tyrimui buvo pasirinktas aprašomasis tyrimas, duomenys buvo surinkti naudojant struktūrizuotą duomenų rinkimo metodą - Lietuvos degalinių klientų anketinę apklausą. Tikimasi, kad tyrimo rezultatai patvirtins, jog paslaugų įmonių klientų lojalumas turi būti vertinamas naudojant keturias mokslinėje litaratūroje pateikiamas lojalumo dimensijas, o degalinių vartotojų tyrimo metu pratestuotas vartotojų lojalumo vertinimo dimensijų klausimynas ateityje bus sėkmingai pritaikytas tiriant vartotojų lojalumą ir kitose paslaugų įmonėse.Customer loyalty in service industries has received considerable attention in both marketing and management theory and practice. As customer loyalty may act as a barrier to customer switching behavior it has an impact on the development of a sustainable competitive edge. The suggestion that loyalty is multi-dimensional concept is not new and the traditional bi-dimensional definition may be far from a complete picture of loyalty. There is little dispute that concept of loyalty is important. The measurement of loyalty has been of enduring concern to both academics and marketing practitioners. The literature contains a multitude of different measures and definitions of loyalty, yet there has been little attempt to consolidate the measurement of this complex concept. The relationship between loyalty measures has not been sufficiently explored yet despite the continued acknowledgement that there is a need for loyalty research to relate different loyalty measures to each other and to use more than one measure in the same paper. Loyalty in service markets should be defined as a dimensional concept since any given customer can exhibit different degrees of loyalty to a service provider. Customers may be highly loyal on one dimension, while at the same time exhibit low loyalty on other dimensions. This paper defines service loyalty as a support to an object during times when alternate options are available. The empirical results of this study suggest that there are four dimensions of loyalty, namely attitudinal loyalty (a=0.89), resistance to competing offers (a=0.91), situational loyalty (a=0.81) and individual's propensity to be loyal (a=0.88). The identification of loyalty dimensions has already commenced and loyal researches have historically identified two dimensions of loyalty, namely attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. In the past decade services marketing researches have expanded the traditional bi-dimensional definitions of loyalty to incorporate additional dimensions of loyalty (a=0.88). The results of this paper also suggests that loyalty should be defined as a multi-dimensional concepts with dimensions that are related, yet also distinct since any given customer may exhibit different degrees of loyalty on each dimension. This paper presents the loyalty dimensions expected in the fuel service market including their origin in the market literature, followed by the methodology and then the results and conclusion