The four grocery chains Axfood, Bergendahls, Coop and ICA, all providing private labels, dominate the Swedish grocery market. Through private labels, it may be possible to convey an image about the grocery chain's overall brand. Furthermore, it is important that the grocery chain's employees have a fairly consistent understanding regarding the company's image to achieve success. The main purpose of this study is to examine how the intended image the Swedish grocery chains head offices will communicate through private labels is perceived among the store employees. The study intends to provide an expanded view among the grocery chains' work on internal communications regarding the image of private labels. The research method is qualitative. Further, personal semi-structured interviews were conducted with grocery chains' head offices and stores. The survey shows that the need for internal communication is, in some cases, a higher priority among key offices than among the stores. Distinct differences can also be distinguished between grocery chains, where the main offices and stores perceptions of private labels in some cases differ. The survey also shows that the grocery chains' efforts with private labels differ depending on whether the private labels are possible to associate with the grocery chain's overall brand or not. / Den svenska dagligvarumarknaden domineras av de fyra dagligvaruhandelskedjorna Axfood, Bergendahls, Coop och ICA som alla tillhandahåller egna märkesvaror (EMV). Genom EMV kan det vara möjligt att förmedla en image kring dagligvarukedjans samlade varumärke. Vidare är det av stor vikt att dagligvarukedjans medarbetare har en någorlunda samstämmig uppfattning gällande företagets image för att nå framgång. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur den avsedda imagen, som svenska dagligvaruhandelskedjors huvudkontor ämnar förmedla genom egna märkesvaror, uppfattas bland butiksmedarbetarna. Undersökningen har för avsikt att ge en vidgad uppfattning kring dagligvarukedjornas arbete med den interna kommunikationen gällande EMVs image. Studiens forskningsmetod är kvalitativ där personliga semi- strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med dagligvarukedjornas huvudkontor och butiker. Undersökningen visar att behovet av intern kommunikation i vissa fall är större bland huvudkontoren än bland butikerna. Tydliga skillnader går även att urskilja dagligvarukedjorna emellan, där huvudkontorens och butikernas uppfattningar kring EMV som fenomen i vissa fall går isär. Undersökningen visar vidare att dagligvarukedjornas arbete med EMV är olika beroende på om de egna märkesvarorna är möjliga att associera till dagligvarukedjans samlade varumärke eller inte.

Background: The financial services industry is a highly competitive and fragmented market. Firms are realizing the need and advantage of retaining customers rather than only focusing on acquiring new customers. Managers should focus on increasing customer satisfaction and communication levels as well as providing higher service quality. They should also emphasize the importance of building better relationships with customers to create loyalty. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if customers of a local bank office are loyal, find the factors that create disloyalty and analyze how the bank can increase customer loyalty.  Method: To complete the purpose of this paper, the authors prepared a case study on a local Swedish bank and conducted a survey of the bank’s customers to determine levels of loyalty within the company. The authors spent four days in the bank office to have the customers fill in the survey immediately after their experience with the bank. Participants in the survey were customers who visited bank tellers, had booked meetings, or un-booked meetings. Conclusion: It was found that the bank had high levels of customer loyalty, as a majority of the customers were exclusively customers of the bank. Never the less a significant amount of customers had an additional bank(s) which shows the bank has an opportunity to strengthen their market position, but also a need to retain their customers. Customers were satisfied with the service quality provided and the relationships were satisfactory between customers and their advisers. The majority of the customers were contributing to a positive word of mouth, which is an indicator that they are loyal customers. However, the main area of improvement needed by the bank is to implement a better customer complaint management system, as many customers did not know how or where to complain. / Bakgrund: Den finansiella tjänstesektorn är en starkt konkurrensutsatt och fragmenterad marknad. Företag inser behovet och fördelen av att behålla kunder snarare än att enbart fokusera på att värva nya. Genom att fokusera på att öka kundnöjdheten för att de existerande kunderna kan de erbjuda en bättre service kvalitet. De bör också betona vikten av att bygga bättre relationer med kunder för att skapa lojalitet. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om en lokal banks kunder är lojala, hitta de faktorer som skapar illojalitet och analysera hur banken kan öka kundlojaliteten. Metod: För att uppnå syftet med vår uppsats utarbetade författarna en fallstudie den lokala banken. Författarna genomförde en undersökning av bankens kunder för att analysera dess lojalitet till företaget. Författarna tillbringade en vecka i banken för att utvärdera kundens erfarenhet i relation till dess besök. Deltagarna i undersökningen var kunder som besökte banken i ärenden inom kassa, bokat möten, eller obokat möte. Slutsats: Det konstaterades att banken hade hög kundlojalitet, då en majoritet av kunderna var endast kunder i banken. Icke desto mindre, en stor mängd kunder hade ytterligare bank(er) vilket visar att banken har en möjlighet att stärka sin ställning på i den lokala marknaden, men också att stärka sin ställning i den existerande kundkretsen. Kunderna var nöjda med den servicekvalitet som banken tillhandahåller och relationer var tillfredsställande mellan kunder och deras rådgivare. Majoriteten av kunderna bidrar med positiva rekommendationer, vilket är en indikator på att de är lojala kunder. Dock är den viktigaste biten av förbättring krävs av banken för att genomföra ett bättre system för hantering av anmälningar, eftersom många kunder inte vet hur eller var att klaga.

I Sverige råder det hög konkurrens och låg kundrörlighet på bankmarknaden samtidigt som många banker har dålig kunskap om vad de ska erbjuda för att locka till sig nya kunder. Ett specifikt segment som Swedbank är intresserade av att locka till sig är universitetsstudenter. I dagsläget erbjuder Sveriges stora banker enbart klassiskt finansiella mervärden till dessa studenter. Detta innebär att bankerna inte särskiljer sig, vilket i sin tur gör att studenterna inte lockas till att byta bank eftersom samma mervärden redan erbjuds hos deras nuvarande banker. Därmed finns det en möjlighet att utforska nya mervärden som en student kan tänka sig att byta bank för. Detta för oss in på följande problemformulering: - Vad för mervärde eller vilka mervärden ska en bank erbjuda universitetsstudenter (18-26 år) vid Umeå Universitet för att få dem att byta från sin nuvarande bank, samt varför är dessa mervärden av betydelse för studenterna och för banken? Vid skapandet av denna uppsats har vi berört teorierna ”Mervärde”, ”Brand Loyalty- & Illoyalty”, ”Lifestyle Branding & Marketing”, ”Pioneers” och ”Blue Ocean Strategy”. Vidare har vi arbetat både kvalitativt (fokusgrupp) och kvantitativt (enkätundersökningar). Fokusgruppen utfördes med fyra stycken fjärdeårselever vid Umeå universitet där vi undersökte vad för mervärden en bank bör erbjuda till universitetsstudenter. De erhållna mervärdena prövade vi sedan i enkätundersökningen. Enkäten fördelades ut till 121 stycken studenter vid alla de fyra olika fakulteten vid Umeå universitet med ett fokus på att ta reda på vilket eller vilka mervärden den generella studenten kunde tänka sig att byta bank för. När datainsamlingen var klar gjordes en analys av resultatet där vi tog reda på varför vissa mervärden är av betydelse för studenterna och Swedbank. I arbetets slutsats kom vi fram till följande: Det vi har kommit fram till är att det existerar två starka mervärden som kan göra att universitetsstudenter kan tänka sig att byta bank. Dessa mervärden är Rabatt på studentlitteratur och Rabatt på gymkort. Detta grundar sig att mervärdena både har en betydelse för Swedbank och universitetsstudenterna, vilket skapar vinster för båda parterna. Detta för att Swedbank kan få nya och lojala kunder samtidigt som studenterna kan erhålla mervärden som passar deras livsstil.

Förett företags konkurrenskraft och överlevnad är det idag av stor vikt att ha enfungerande rekrytering och kompetensförsörjning som matchar företagets behovmed individens. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var att undersökaupplevelser av arbetsrelaterad motivation och lojalitet vad det gällerdeltagande i ett Traineeprogram. Två fokusgruppintervjuer med fem deltagarefrån år 2011 och fem deltagare från 2012 ligger till grund för studien. Dataanalyserades med kvalitativ tematisk dataanalys och huvudresultatet visademycket positiva upplevelser av motivation och lojalitet. Resultatet visade attdeltagarna upplevde att de fått en god inblick i hela organisationen och därmedutvecklat bättre förståelse, engagemang och tillit. Det till följd av attföretaget sett till individernas behov, förväntningar och personliga utvecklingvia traineeprogrammet. En slutsats var att organisationen kan stärka individensmotivation och lojalitet genom att arbeta med kommunikation, ledarens roll samtorganisationsklimatet. / It is very important for a company's competitiveness and survival to have an effective recruitment and skills that match business needs with the individual´s. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences of work-related motivation and loyalty in terms of participation in a trainee program. Two focus group interviews with five participants from 2011 and five participants from 2012 formed the basis for the study. Data were analyzed using qualitative thematic data analysis. The main results showed a very positive experience in terms of motivation and loyalty. Participants felt that they had a good insight into the entire organization and thus developed a better understanding, commitment and trust, as a result of that the company had recognized individuals' needs, expectations and personal development via the trainee program. One conclusion was that the business can support the individual's motivation and loyalty by working with communication, leader role and the organizational climate.

ABSTRACT   Title: Mobile Marketing: Study of ICA – Correlation between mobile marketing and customer loyalty Level: Master Degree in Business Administration Authors: Bolor Amarsanaa and Joshua Anjorin Supervisor: Ernst Hollander Date: 2012 – January Aim: Having loyal customers is a key for successful organizations. There is increased complexity and competitiveness in the market place as regards to what companies need to do and how to do them in meeting the needs of customers. Is that why companies today are exploring the potentials of mobile phones to ultimately earn customers’ loyalty? However, there is not much research done in this area, especially in finding correlation between mobile marketing and customer loyalty. Thus, this research aims to examine correlation between mobile marketing and customer loyalty. Method: Data collection methods included literature reviews, a questionnaire and interviews. These were analysed by hypothesising, comparing with theories, and the use of descriptive analysis, correlation, and other methods presented as discussions, tables, and charts. Results & Conclusions: The theoretical and empirical research findings show that customer loyalty is positively related with mobile marketing. Use of mobile marketing such as mobile application, mobile web and SMS can perhaps enhance customer loyalty by meeting the demand of customers; increasing interaction and communication with customers; and increasing customer satisfaction. However, due to the research limitations and due to the fact that mobile marketing is a relatively new field of study, it needs some more time and more extensive research to make a general assumption about relationship between them and the strength of such relationship. Suggestions for future research: For further research, more extended research with broader samples is essential. It will be also crucial to investigate how much of an effect mobile marketing has on customer loyalty by scrutinizing company’s cost and profit measurements of mobile marketing besides opt-in and opt-out measurements of customers. Contribution of the thesis: We hope that this research has scratched the surface to this new field of study and made an addition to existing theory. It also stirs up interests in the emerging research on mobile marketing’s untapped potentials. Key words: Mobile Marketing, Customer loyalty, mobile phone, customer satisfaction, communication with customers.

This paper investigated the relationship between e-service quality and consumer loyalty in the context of consumer electronic retail industry in Sweden. E-service quality is found to be a prime determinant of consumer loyalty which is very important for the growth of any business regardless of the industry. On this study, we have selected four most important dimensions of e-service quality which are: Reliability, Responsiveness, Ease of use, and Security. We adopted a quantitative approach for this study and our survey took place in the area of Umea University. We reached a total of 200 respondents who are used to with purchasing electronic products online. After collecting the data we analyzed it with the help of statistical tools and then interpreted the results in connection to our theoretical framework. We found that all the four dimensions of e-service quality have strong relationship with consumer loyalty which means that they have considerable impact on building and maintaining the loyalty of consumers in electronics retail industry. We found out that the consumers give the highest priority to the organization of website contents and security of transaction. If the company present the e-retailing website convincingly and ensure safety of transaction, the consumers are more likely to show loyalty towards that company. We also found that reliability is less important than the three other factors according to multiple regressions analysis result; though all the four factors found to be significant according to simple regression. This study fulfills the lack of industry-specific study on the relationship between e-service quality and loyalty for consumer electronic goods industry. However, the study suggests a number of future research possibilities including reassessment of the e-service quality dimensions, measurement of the impact of social media on the relationship between e-service quality and consumer loyalty and so on.

Title: The Battle of the Customers – Does loyalty exist within the FMCG market? Authors: Emmie Thurn 880909, David Gustafsson 870926  Purpose: The purpose with this study is to examine how relationship marketing strategies can enhance companies’ effectiveness, within the FMCG market, in the sense of more satisfied and loyal customers. The 5Qs model will be applied in order to see if there are any critical quality factors that encourage long-term relationship. Methodology: This quantitative study was based upon positivistic assumptions and carried out by a deductive research approach. The data was collected through two questionnaires, which included 200 customers and 15 representatives from three various FMCG stores. Conclusion: In this study the authors have found that RM, as the current theory present it, does not provide any effective strategies to create customer satisfaction and loyalty within the FMCG market. Therefore, the authors raise the question if price is the new customer loyalty program within the FMCG market? Ten quality factors are identified as critical when generating a long-term relationship between FMCG stores and customers.  To create a successful long-term relationship can these quality factors be combined into a PRODSERV offer. Keywords: Relationship marketing, quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, 5Qs model, the FMCG market.

Background: During the last decade, retail businesses have realized the importance of creatinga strong brand to be able to differentiate in a fierce market. However, having a strong brand isno longer enough to survive in the long run and gain a large customers base. Especially in theretail and fashion industry where many products fulfill the same need for the customer, making it important to adapt to changes on the market and stand out in the crowd. This has lead to the wide variety of brands that can be found and an intensified competition. Therefore, the key factor for building a long-term relationship is through customer brand relationship. A literature review showed that the most important variables needed to build this relationship are brandexperience, brand satisfaction and brand trust. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how brand experience, brand satisfaction and brand trust effect brand loyalty in Växjö, Sweden. Hypotheses:H1: Brand experience has a positive effect on brand loyalty.H2: Brand satisfaction has a positive effect on brand loyalty.H3: Brand trust has a positive effect on brand loyalty. Method: This study was based on a deductive and quantitative research approach withempirical data conducted from 239 respondents to either accept or reject the stated hypotheses. Result and conclusion: According to the empirical data, the stated hypotheses were acceptedand imply that 41.2 percent of brand loyalty can be explained by brand satisfaction, brand trustand brand experience. However, for retail businesses within the fashion industry to ensurebrand loyalty from the customers, brand satisfaction is the main focus.

Iconic brand is a new topic in the field of branding that has started to attract researchers’ attentions; yet, it is still mostly discussed in the non-academic field. Brand community is also an evolving topic in marketing. These two new concepts are the focuses of this research. The main subject of this research is to explore the componential factors of iconic brand and brand community and the influences of the former ones on the latter ones. Even though there are few books and articles related to iconic brand, so far no quantitative research has been conducted. Thus, in this study, quantitative method is used to explore the componential factors of iconic brand. The same method is applied to brand community as well to explore the impacts of iconic brand on brand community. This research also accounts for a fact that cultural differences of the three countries (Sweden, Taiwan, and Vietnam) may affect respondents’ perceptions on the factors of iconic brand and brand community, as well as the impact levels between them. This study starts with examining the relevant literatures of branding, iconic brand, brand community, and cultural aspects of branding. Then, the hypotheses and research model are proposed based on theories. Questionnaires are distributed to Swedish, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese respondents in accordance with convenience sampling and snowball sampling. A total collection of 486 accepted questionnaires (which includes 171 questionnaires from Sweden, 163 ones from Taiwan, and 152 ones from Vietnam) is coded and analyzed by using SPSS and AMOS. Factor Analysis (EFA and CFA) and Cronbach’s Alpha are used to test the measurement reliability and consistency. Together with them, other statistical techniques, such as ANOVA and SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) are employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Semi-structured interviews are then conducted, based on the results of quantitative analysis, with six dynamic consumers from the three countries to explore further the cultural differences for the topic in Sweden, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The results show that iconic brand has three componential factors: brand personality, brand myth, and brand storytelling, while brand community has two factors: brand loyalty and emotional attachment to brand community. Also, the findings reveal that brand personality has the most positive impacts on brand loyalty while brand storytelling has the lowest positive impact on brand loyalty. Other impacts of iconic brand’s factors on brand community’s factors are positively moderate. Furthermore, both quantitative and qualitative results confirm the hypotheses of cultural differences in respondents’ perceptions (in the three countries) on iconic brand’s factors, brand community’s factors, and the positive impact levels between them.

Abstract Problem statement – what factors determine brand loyalty in Smartphone? Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine causal antecedent factors leading to brandloyalty in the Swedish Smartphone market Theory – theoretical review and critical analysis of academic journals related to dependantand independent variables and conceptual model is formulated. Methodology - Quantitative approach is used to quantify the relationship between dependantand independent variables based on the proposed theoretical model that delineates therelationships between dependant variable brand loyalty and the independent variablescustomer satisfaction, perceived quality, brand experience, brand image, brand switching costand product involvement. Data – In total 200 responses were collected through a structured interview from UppsalaUniversity, Uppsala central train and bus station and two big shopping centers in Uppsala (S: tper galleria and Forum galleria). Apple and Sony Ericsson brand users are interviewed in thedata gathering process, 100 respondents for each brand Findings – the analysis suggest brand image, product involvement and customer satisfactiondetermined brand loyalty in Apple brand, whereas customer satisfaction was the onlydeterminate factor in Sony Ericsson brand