Toward a Better Understanding on Loyalty Program Design: The Moderating Role of Membership Fee and Customization

Abstract

In recent years loyalty programs (LPs) have been one of the most popular relational marketing strategies applied by many industries Through providing relational benefits in the program firms can not only gain profitable revenue from the loyal consumers but also convey messages to them with lower cost In this research relational benefits which include confidence benefits social benefits and special treatment benefits were used to examine program members’perception of benefits provided by the LPs launchers Program members would further establish their attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty toward the service provider after perceiving benefits from the program Moreover attitudinal loyalty might further intensify their behavioral loyalty Furthermore when it comes to LPs the fee structure of the program design and the perception of customization degree might be the important factors which affect perceived benefits to loyalty The research findings were concluded as follows First members perceiving confidence benefits and social benefits would tend to be attitudinal loyal to the service provider Secondly members develop both behavioral and attitudinal loyalty to the firm when perceiving special treatment benefits Thirdly members’ attitudinal loyalty has positive influence on behavioral loyalty Forth the fee-based LPs would strengthen members behavioral and attitudinal loyalty if they engaged in social relationship with the service provider Finally customization service has positive influence on behavioral loyalty when members perceived special treatment benefits from the program

Date of Award	2016 Sept 7
Original language	English
Supervisor	Meng-Kuan Lai (Supervisor)