M.Comm.

The thesis is focused on the area of loyalty programme. Its aim is to analyse the loyalty programme of Ambiente restaurants called The Programme for Friends of Good Food and to compare it with the old method of rewarding customers that the company used to have before they launched the programme. The theoretical part of this thesis describes the position of loyalty programme in marketing and explains the basic terms as marketing and commercial communication, marketing mix, communication mix, sales promotion and its different forms. In connection with the loyalty programme, the terms as customer loyalty, satisfaction and value are explained. It is also described the customer relationship management and the ways how the loyalty programme can be measured. In practical part, there is an introduction of the Ambiente restaurants group and its previous method of rewarding customers and description of the new loyalty programme.

The objective of this thesis is to find those factors that help create customers loyalty in E-commerce. In the application part of this thesis the objective is to those factors for a specific E-commerce store Úžasnédárky.cz. To find these factors in this thesis we used community research methodology applied to the target group. This thesis also describes the evolution and history of the internet which allowed the birth of E-commerce. It also describes the phenomenon of loyalty and its specifics in online world. Some of the results of this thesis might be surprising, such as that seemingly trivial factors, such as prompt communication and its quality, compliance of an agreement or fast delivery of goods can dramatically increase customers loyalty and sometimes can even be a competitive advantage for the company.

The diploma thesis deals with the usage of mobile applications for communication within loyalty programs and direct marketing. The objective of this thesis is to identify the potential of the usage and to compare the efficiency of the communication through mobile applications for smartphones in communication within the loyalty programs with e-mailing. The comparison of both communication channels was done based on campaigns, which were realized for purpose of this thesis for the real client. Researched metrics were click through rate and conversion rate. The identification of mobile application usage potential for communication was done through questionnaire and interview with experts.

[pt] O mercado de seguro de automóvel no Brasil apresenta uma concorrência agressiva, indicando que as seguradoras devem investir na fidelização de clientes para buscar sua sobrevivência. Dado isso, este estudo visa testar e analisar hipóteses que abordam a formação da lealdade do cliente no seguro de automóvel com base na análise de efeitos de antecedentes relevantes, como satisfação, custo da mudança, atratividade das alternativas e confiança. A revisão da literatura apresenta e discute modelos de lealdade de acordo com os estudos de Picón et al. (2014) e Aurier e N Goala, (2010). Por meio de uma survey, foi coletada uma amostra de 230 segurados de automóvel. A análise dos dados e o teste das hipóteses propostas foi realizada por meio de modelagem de equações estruturais. Os resultados indicam que satisfação, confiança, atratividade das alternativas e custos de troca impactam diretamente na lealdade do consumidor no mercado de seguro de automóvel. / [en] The car insurance market in Brazil presents aggressive competition, indicating that insurers should invest in customer loyalty to survive. Thus, this study aims to test and analyze hypotheses that address customer loyalty in the insurance market based on the analysis of relevant antecedents of loyalty, such as satisfaction, switching costs, attractiveness of the alternatives and trust. The literature review presents and discusses loyalty models according to Picón et al. (2014) and Aurier and N Goala, (2010). Through a survey, a sample of 230 automobile insurance clients was collected. The proposed model was analyzed via structural equations modeling. The results show that satisfaction, trust, attractiveness of alternatives and switching cost directly affect loyalty in the car insurance industry.

O ambiente das operações de serviços lança desafios às organizações e a seus gestores, principalmente por envolverem o cliente no ato de consumo do serviço. Os efeitos da tecnologia e da globalização torna esta situação ainda mais desafiadora. Somado a isto, a importância de prestar serviços que vão ao encontro daquilo que o mercado deseja, como forma de fidelizar clientes num mercado cada vez mais exigente. Evidências de estudos apontam para a estratégia da lealdade como uma maneira de formar uma base de clientes sustentável, proporcionando lucros crescentes ao longo do tempo. Neste contexto, este estudo foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de verificar a interferência da qualidade percebida dos serviços, da linha de frente e retaguarda, na lealdade dos clientes pessoa jurídica (PJ) num Banco. O estudo é composto por duas etapas, uma qualitativa exploratória e outra quantitativa descritiva. A etapa qualitativa, através de entrevistas semiestruturadas em profundidade teve como propósito coletar percepções de gestores e clientes do Banco que ambientou a pesquisa, que proporcionassem subsídios para o aprimoramento do instrumento de coleta aplicado na etapa quantitativa. Através de uma survey, foi aplicado um questionário com 48 questões cuja escala de qualidade de serviços SERVPERF e a escala de lealdade de Santos (2001) tiveram adicionadas 20 questões oriundas das entrevistas da etapa qualitativa. Como resultados, a etapa qualitativa contribui com uma proposta de escala adaptada para o contexto atual do setor bancário clientes PJ. Na etapa quantitativa, os fatores empatia, segurança e resposta formaram um modelo que representa 62% de poder de explicação do comportamento de lealdade dos 129 clientes que compuseram amostra. A ANOVA – Análise da Variância foi realizada para a comparação entre as médias de avaliação da qualidade e lealdade entre diferentes grupos de clientes. Os resultados permitem concluir que as respectivas médias de avaliação são mais elevadas para clientes com maior grau de relacionamento com o Banco, apresentando maiores níveis de significância para clientes que operam com crédito e clientes que afirmaram que o Banco é sua principal instituição financeira em volume de negócios. Ao final, são destacadas algumas implicações teóricas e gerenciais do trabalho, assim como limitações da pesquisa e sugestões para estudos futuros. / The environment of services operations poses challenges to organizations and their managers, mainly because they involve the customer in the acts of consumer service. The effects of technology and globalization, makes the situation even more challenging. Added to this, the importance of providing services that meet what the market wants, in order to retain customers in an increasingly demanding market. Studies evidences point to a strategy of loyalty as a way to form a sustainable customer base, providing increased profits over time. In this context, this study was conducted in order to verify the interference of the perceived quality of services, the front and back office, at the loyalty of corporate customers in a Bank. The study consists of two phases, an exploratory qualitative and other quantitative descriptive. The qualitative stage, through semi-structured and in-depth interviews aimed to collect perceptions of managers and customers of the Bank who was the environment of the research. That would provide subsidies for the improvement of the collection instrument applied to the quantitative stage. Through a survey, a questionnaire was administered to 48 questions whose range of quality services SERVPERF and the scale of loyalty to Santos (2001) had added 20 questions derived from interviews of qualitative stage. As a result, qualitative stage contributes a proposal to scale adapted to the current context of the banking industry corporate customers. In the quantitative stage, the empathy factor, security and response formed a model that represents 62% of explanatory power of the loyalty behavior of 129 customers that composed the sample. ANOVA – Analysis of Variances was performed to compare the means of assessing the quality and loyalty among different customer groups. The results show that the respective means of evaluation are higher for customers with a higher level of relationship with the Bank, with higher significance levels for customers that operate with credit and customers who said that the Bank is a leading financial institution in volume Business. Lastly, the paper highlighted some theoretical and managerial implications of the work, as well as limitations of the research and suggestions for future studies.

Nos mercados de varejos altamente competitivos há uma constante busca pela diferenciação e lealdade dos consumidores. Contudo, a compreensão de como os atributos de imagem de loja são percebidos pelos consumidores é uma questão de suma importância. É nesse contexto dinâmico do varejo que o presente trabalho de pesquisa foi desenvolvido, tento como principal objetivo identificar a relação entre imagem de varejo de vestuário e a lealdade dos consumidores da geração Y. O estudo se inicia com uma revisão bibliográfica sobre imagem, imagem de loja, lealdade e o modelo conceitual de imagem de loja (MCIL). A pesquisa foi realizada através de levantamento de campo com aplicação de questionário estruturado e a população foi definida como sendo consumidores da geração Y – nascidos entre final dos anos 1970 até o ano 2000, cuja amostra foi constituída de 394 respondentes. Os dados foram avaliados através da análise estatística multivariada de dados, utilizando a técnica de Modelagem de Equações Estruturais. Como resultados foi obtida a confirmação de que a imagem de loja é composta pelos construtos atmosfera, instalações, mix de produtos (mercadoria), promoção, pessoal de vendas e serviços e o modelo teórico proposto foi considerado adequado, indicando que a lealdade é explicada por 23,8% pela imagem de loja, apresentando uma boa contribuição tanto acadêmica quanto gerencial. / In the highly competitive retail market there is a constant search for differentiation and customer loyalty. However, understanding how store image attributes are perceived by consumers is a matter of paramount importance. It is in this dynamic retail context that this research work was carried out, try as main objective to identify the relationship between retail clothing image and the loyalty of consumers of Generation Y. The study begins with a literature review of image, image store loyalty and the conceptual model of store image (MCIL). The survey was conducted through a structured questionnaire application with field survey and the population was defined as consumers of Generation Y - born between the late 1970s until 2000, whose sample consisted of 394 respondents. The data were analyzed by multivariate statistical analysis of data, using structural equation modeling technique. The results were obtained confirmation that the store image is composed of the constructs atmosphere, facilities, merchandise, promotion, sales personnel and service and the proposed theoretical model was appropriate, indicating that loyalty is explained by 23.8% by the image store and offer great contribution both academic and managerial.

This project will describe the nature of customer share marketing, its advantages and disadvantages. The project discusses how the marketing theme is graduating customers from market share marketing to customer share marketing and the use of customer share marketing to retain and grow existing customers.

The effectiveness of loyalty programmes continues to be questioned, especially as their cost to firms increase together with their adoption rate across industries worldwide. Given the divergent industry specific findings predominantly focusing on the retail and airline industries, and the lack of previous consideration of important moderating variables type and timing of rewards, this study extended the research to service industries, investigating the effects of customer perceived benefits on loyalty programme effectiveness in terms of both attitudinal and behavioural loyalty. Hypotheses established the extent to which reward design elements (customer perceived benefits and type and timing of rewards) develop customer relationships (perceived relationship investment and brand relationship quality) which are market-based assets driving future revenue for the firm, and resulted in customer loyalty in the financial services industry. A quantitative methodology and survey approach was adopted with a randomly selected stratified sample of respondents. The results supported the validity and reliability of the construct measures and a satisfactory adjusted SEM model fit. The study provided industry-specific outcomes, indicating that social (integration with customer values), exploratory (exposure and access to relevant and timeous knowledge), monetary (financial value) and entertainment benefits drive customer loyalty in the financial services industry, with timing of rewards having no moderating impact and type of reward only impactful for consumers that prefer indirect (non-financial) exploratory and entertainment benefits. Importantly, the benefit of recognition was found not to have a significant influence. The study further supported divergent reward design elements as antecedents of customer loyalty across industries, as a result of the divergent nature of customer relationships between industries. Limitations of the research were consideration of customer characteristics, segments, and the relationship between attitudinal and behavioural loyalty. The study’s theoretical contribution provides for a more comprehensive conceptual model of loyalty programme effectiveness, leveraging customer relationships which are grounded in market-based asset theory, as well as an empirical analysis of previously untested relationships between important variables. The research also confirms the requirement for industry-specific design elements for effective loyalty programmes. For practitioners, the findings provide guidance on design elements of an effective programme within the financial services industry. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / PhD / Unrestricted

La disertación que se presenta a continuación tiene como objetivo explicar la satisfacción del cliente como un indicador de calidad, para ello se ha revisado diferentes posturas sobre si la calidad de servicio antecede o es una consecuencia de la satisfacción del cliente. El método empleado fue descriptivo de tipo explicativo. La investigación se llevó a cabo bajo una revisión sistemática de diversas fuentes de información especializadas. En este sentido, se presenta una recopilación sobre la conceptualización y características más relevantes de la satisfacción del cliente, así como también de la calidad de servicio, con fundamento en citas de autores que ya han abordado estas variables. De la misma forma, se realizó un análisis de la controversia si la satisfacción del cliente depende de la calidad de servicio o viceversa, siendo una relación importante para la gestión empresarial. Las conclusiones evidencian que no existe un vehículo único para lograr un servicio de calidad; no obstante, la satisfacción de los clientes es vista por los autores como un requisito indispensable en el modelo teórico, constituyendo el vehículo más seguro y expedito para alcanzar la calidad. Por tanto, la calidad del servicio como concepto teórico y práctico seria consecuencia de la presencia de los atributos que permiten la satisfacción del cliente. La calidad y satisfacción también actúan de forma sinérgica; por tanto, son elementos teóricos y prácticos difíciles de separar. / The dissertation presented below aims to characterize customer satisfaction as an indicator of quality, for it has reviewed different positions on whether the quality of service precedes or is a consequence of customer satisfaction. The method used was descriptive, explanatory. The research was carried out under a systematic review of various sources of specialized information. In this sense, a compilation is presented on the conceptualization and most relevant characteristics of customer satisfaction, as well as quality of service, based on quotes from authors who have already addressed these variables. Similarly, an analysis was made of the controversy whether customer satisfaction depends on quality of service or vice versa, being an important relationship for business management. The conclusions show that there is no single vehicle for achieving quality service; however, customer satisfaction is seen by the authors as an indispensable requirement in the theoretical model, constituting the safest and most expeditious vehicle for achieving quality. Therefore, the quality of the service as a theoretical and practical concept would be a consequence of the presence of the attributes that allow customer satisfaction. Quality and satisfaction also act synergistically; therefore, they are theoretical and practical elements difficult to separate. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional