Customer relationship management (CRM) presents a new paradigm shift to the old traditional marketing strategies that are known and practiced by many organisations in South Africa and across the globe. Competition is not an excuse for failure anymore. Organisations that do not have any concrete strategies in dealing with the customer will not survive in the market. The ultimate goal of CRM is to enable organisations to forge closer ties with the customer so that a solid bond can be created to enhance loyalty and satisfaction. The goal for this research was to identify the CRM strategies used by a single organisation and thereafter suggest improvements to enhance customer loyalty. The results of the study could assist the management of the organisation to improve the CRM strategies which will hopefully enhance retention and prevent customer attrition. A literature review was conducted to unveil various elements of CRM, and strategies that can attract and retain customers. It helped in identifying themes for the empirical study. An in-depth interview was conducted with the general manager of the organisation to gauge his perception, and CRM practices in the organisation. An interview guide was used during the interview process. Four main topics namely: implementation of CRM, customer loyalty, customer complaints and conflict, and employees training and motivation were utilised for the interview guide and followed by further probing. Based on the responses obtained, analyses were made by comparing the responses to what literature revealed so that shortcomings could easily be identified.The study revealed that there were several inconsistencies with what was practised by the organisation and what the literature study revealed. Bearing in mind the shortcomings identified in the empirical study, the researcher made the following recommendations. The CRM implementation approach needs to be carefully planned with a clear defined vision and mission statement that focus on customer centredness. The organisation needs to invest in modern and innovative channels of communication and strategic partnership to reach the right customer. The organisation has to develop effective market segmentation and targeting to know the customer well. Consistent and highly relevant customer experiences should be drawn-on to fulfill the organisation’s promise of trust and reliability. The organisation should adopt competitive pricing strategy to limit customer sensitivity on price. The organisation should invest in employees’ development and welfare. Further research can be conducted to investigate the perception of other food retailers on the CRM strategies practiced. Further research can also be conducted in the organisation to investigate the perception of employees and customers on the CRM strategies practised.

Brands are major role-players in the organisational business strategy; and they are recognised as one of the most valuable assets a company can possess. The entry of low-cost competitors has redefined the entire competitive landscape of the health-care industry through their ability to transform their value chain, in order to drastically reduce prices. With the fierce rivalry amongst the competitors, and a quest for companies to achieve competitive advantage, companies must design their strategies better than their competitors. For a company to be successful in such an environment, customer-brand loyalty is a critical issue. The main objective of this study was to measure brand loyalty in the medical-devices industry of South Africa, and to establish the key influencing factors of brand loyalty in this industry. The measurement of brand loyalty in the medical devices industry is founded on a conceptual brand-loyalty framework for the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry developed by Moolla (2012). The 12 brand loyalty factors identified by Moolla are: customer satisfaction; switching costs or risk aversion; brand trust; involvement; repeat purchases; relationship proneness; commitment; perceived value; brand relevance; brand affect; brand performance and culture. The empirical study was conducted among 250 medical practitioners across the private sector and public sector health-care system of South Africa. The methodology adopted in the study included the sampling procedure, the data collection, the questionnaire development and the statistical techniques used to analyse the results. The results were analysed with regard to: Factor analysis; Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients, mean values and inferential statistics. The results were presented in a conceptual framework, in order to measure brand loyalty in the medical devices industry of South Africa. The results of this study concluded that the brand loyalty influences, as identified by Moolla, are important for measuring brand loyalty in the medical devices industry. The empirical results focused on the demographic profile of the respondents, the validity of the questionnaire, the reliability of the results obtained, as well as the importance of the research variables. The analysis enabled certain conclusions to be drawn relating to the significant factors of brand loyalty in the medical devices industry in South Africa. A comparison was conducted relating to age group, gender profile, the health-care sector and the medical specialization – to determine whether there were any significant differences in the influence of the brand-loyalty factors identified. The chapter concluded with a conceptual framework for the medical-devices industry adapted from Moolla (2012) framework.

Contemporary human resources management suggests that organisations which have been able to make it in the business arena have done so through good people management practices. Job satisfaction, through a people centered approach, has not been spared as one of the critical forces used in achieving organisational effectiveness. Traditional thought behind job satisfaction prescribes that satisfied employees tend to be more productive, creative and committed to their jobs; all of which are imperative to ii achieving an organisation’s bottom line. There has been some controversy surrounding the nature of the relationship between job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour, which is another factor that is regarded as important in achieving organisational effectiveness. Some studies have shown that organisational citizenship behavior is a result of job satisfaction. In this regard, the present study focuses on the extent to which job satisfaction influences organisational citizenship behaviour among selected organizations in Zimbabwe. The study hypothesised that job satisfaction correlates positively with organisational citizenship behaviour. Participants in the study comprise of middle level management, supervisors and lower level employees. Two questionnaires were combined to collect data for the study. The Minnesota Satisfaction questionnaire was used to collect data on job satisfaction whilst a questionnaire by Konovsky and Organ (1996:253) was used to collect data on organisational citizenship behaviour. The results show that employees in the organisations surveyed report moderate levels of job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior. It was established that there was a substantive correlation between job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour.

This diploma thesis deals with loyalty and tools which could deepen the loyalty of customers. The thesis provides theoretical background of the theme and outlines essence of the customer loyalty for consequent proposition of tools for its creation. At the beginning of this thesis the conception of loyalty is supported by basic facts of marketing theory, e.g. marketing communication, marketing mix and brand. The thesis continues with essence of loyalty, aspects of loyalty, its drivers, possibilities of satisfaction and loyalty meassurement and effects of loyalty with focus on banking sector. Further this part defines the banking sector, specifics of banking product and developement trends in banking. Partially the influence of current economical crisis on customer loyalty is taken into account. Practical part is focused on description and practical examples of each tool which extends customer loyalty to bank institution in Czech republic and abroad as well. Tools are divided by marketing mix elements according to prevalent characteristics corresponding with the given element. Next are mentioned suggestions to proposition of new loyalty program. The thesis set 3 possible ways of future developement of customer loyalty creation.These ways are focus on simple program resembling to sales promotion, complex program creating real customer loyalty and focus on soft elements (e.g. service quality and pleasant surrounding). At the conclusion is given recommendation for future developement of customer loyalty creation in Česká spořitelna.

This study aims to establish the semantic range of πίστις (‘faith’) in fourth century Christian discourse using the preaching of John Chrysostom as a source base. Against previous scholarship which sees πίστις as primarily a cognitive or propositional term referring to belief, this study uses a close examination of Chrysostom’s preaching to argue that the relational nature of the term was central to its significance for fourth century preaching as Christians considered their own faith and biblical texts. Chrysostom uses the reciprocal, relational character of πίστις to emphasise loyalty, trust and obedience to God through metaphors based upon the military, economic and household contexts of late antiquity. This study further shows that Chrysostom in turn uses these aspects of πίστις to seek to influence the everyday life of his congregation, whether to support existing behaviour (such as obedience to the emperor, or husbands, or the bishop) or to seek to transform behaviour (such as encouraging the rich to give to the poor, or masters to treat slaves better). This contextual understanding of πίστις therefore sheds light on how the relationship with God both informed and was informed by the everyday human relationships of the congregation. The study overall demonstrates the necessity of understanding Chrysostom’s view of πίστις as belonging within a reciprocal relationship, enabling a new view of Chrysostom’s preaching, faith and late antiquity to emerge.

This research makes a case for treating an electronic commerce web site as a social actor and argues that LT-enabled support for personalization systems and virtual communities has a significant impact on the perceived communication characteristics of a web site. This research studied the impact of two communication characteristics - adaptiveness and connectivity of a web site. Adaptiveness indicates the extent to which a web site adapts itself to support the needs of its customers whereas connectivity refers to the ability of a web site to link potential customers with other visitors. Further, synthesizing research from communication, media choice and technology adoption literatures, this thesis proposes social presence as the experiential construct and perceived usefulness as the utilitarian construct that will mediate the relationship between communication characteristics of a medium and customer loyalty. A survey and a laboratory experiment were conducted to test the linkages proposed above. The survey showed that while adaptiveness impacted on both social presence and perceived usefulness, connectivity had an impact only on social presence and an insignificant impact on perceived usefulness. Social presence did not influence perceived usefulness while both social presence and perceived usefulness had a significant impact on customer loyalty. By filtering Amazon.com real-time, the lab experiment was conducted to specifically study the causal impact of a web site's support for personalization and virtual communities. Support for personalization had a strong impact on adaptiveness, whereas support for consumer reviews had strong effect on connectivity. Interestingly, support for personalization had a weaker, but significant effect on connectivity and support for consumer reviews had a similar effect on adaptiveness. Data from the experiment was also analyzed using mediation analyses as well as partial least square analysis to show that the general pattern of results observed were consistent across methods thus improving the confidence in the research model proposed. This research by proposing social presence as a crucial experiential predictor of customer loyalty has addressed an important gap that exists in our current understanding of web users' behavior. It also makes a key contribution by empirically showing that a web site's support for IT-enabled personalization and virtual communities do have a significant impact not only on the perceived communication characteristics, but also on customer loyalty through social presence and perceived usefulness. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The master's thesis deals with the creation of the new concept of a loyalty programme for a particular company, which would be a strong competitive advantage focusing on the selection of benefits through customer survey. To fulfil this topic the thesis first outlines the theoretical knowledge on which the concept should be based and what are the methods and possibilities in the area of loyalty programmes. Furthermore, there is detailed analysis of the market situation and its players with an emphasis on points of difference. The main part of the thesis firstly sets objectives, the target group and principle of the loyalty programme. In the main part the benefits with the highest value for customers are chosen through a customer survey using a three-level selection method. The analysis also outlines the differences between travel classes, gender and age of respondents. In conclusion, there is also the economic rationalization and recommendations for the company.

This thesis deals with measurement of customer satisfaction and loyalty among health care providers with services provided by particular pharmaceutical company. The main goal of this work is to develop methodology for measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty for this segment of services. The theoretical part deals with a summary of findings and approaches describing satisfaction and loyalty, and also review of the methods used for their determination. The thesis also analyzes the differences between two groups of customers and summarizes the differences identified in the primary research that was conducted. Primary research was conducted by having structured interviews with respondents from among health care providers (private versus state providers). Dissertation's conclusions correspond with professional resources and thus develop areas of knowledge about the characteristics of the examined service segment.

The Master's Thesis analyses relationship and loyalty of young people to brands. Within the scope of this thesis the target group is represented by university students in Prague at the age of 19-30 years. Relationship and loyalty of young people to brands are analyzed in selected areas of the products in the categories clothing, drugstore goods and electronics. The main objective of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of the attitudes of young consumers to brands, to help understand why young people buy branded products and the reasons for their (dis)loyalty. The theoretical part deals with the brand from the marketing point of view, the importance of marketing research in practice and it explains key points relating to qualitative and quantitative research. Research methods focus group and field survey used in this thesis are also explained in the theoretical part. Focus group and field survey, which were conducted by the author, are presented, analyzed and evaluated in the practical part. Summary of the key findings made by the author about the relationship and loyalty of young people to brands in these product categories is part of conclusion.

Customer Reward Programs (CRP) have increasingly been used in many industries and markets worldwide with the purpose of gaining customers and retaining their loyalty through repeated purchases in exchange of rewards. Currently, most of the retailers in the Swedish grocery store sector have implemented CRP of different types, from simple discount-based programs to complex multipartnership structures. Previous works have been carried on the competitiveness of the grocery retail market in Sweden, but these haven’t addressed the role of the CRP. Therefore, the objective of this thesis was to analyze the performance of the CRP offered by Ica, Coop, Citygross, Willys and Hemköp from a customer loyalty perspective. The discount store Lidl was also included although they haven’t implemented a CRP. The retailers included in our study covered approximately 93% of the market share in Sweden.   Data was collected through anonymous online surveys that included 12 questions addressed to households living in several Swedish cities. The online surveys allowed us to gather demographics data and info about CRP memberships, purchasing habits, customer loyalty, reward preferences, and customer awareness. In total 134 households replied the survey.   We found high store loyalty among the respondents. However, the strong preference for conveniently located stores indicated that most customers enroll in the CRP to take advantage of the repeated visits they already do to a certain store, which has a favorable location. In other words, we suspect customers become store loyal and then they enroll in the CRP. This attitude is masked as true loyalty but in fact it only implies a behavioral loyalty. Further deeper analysis shall be performed to confirm this finding.   We observed a clear increase of the customer loyalty (measured by share of wallet and purchase frequency) in respondents enrolled in CRP compared to not-enrolled counterparts. Households with children and households with high income had a greater tendency to participate in CRP and these two groups exhibited higher customer loyalty. Our results showed that the package of benefits and rewards offered by the CRP alone does not capture many customers into the CRP. Instead, customers looked for store location, quality and price as the appealing factors to enroll a CRP.   The survey results confirmed the dominance that Ica has over the Swedish grocery retail market. Further analysis combining level of expenditures and frequency of purchase showed that Lidl, Hemköp and Citygross performed quite similar within a group that does not capture great portion of the customer expenditure combined to a low purchase frequency. An output of our research showed that Lidl compete quite well with retailers that have CRP in place like Citygross and Hemköp, or on the contrary, that Hemköp with an advanced CRP does not attract customers sufficiently when compared to Lidl. An analysis based on the double jeopardy effect theory showed that Willys exhibits an “excessive loyalty”. This means, Willys had a higher frequency of purchase and level of expenditure than expected when compared against its market penetration level. Therefore, we identified that Willys overachieve results compared to the others retailers and also to Coop, its closest competitor. We concluded that a CRP with larger benefit scheme does not necessarily increases the customer loyalty to the store. Moreover, boosting CRP with multi-partnership programs that offer several experience rewards (spa, ski resorts, music events and travel tickets) could be inefficient for the grocery retailers since customers feel primarily attracted to immediate rewards related with groceries discounts.