Understanding the Effects of Loyalty Program Relational Benefits, Emotion Elicitation, and Self-disclosure on Long-term Customer Relationship

Loyalty program has served as an effective tool in main-taining long-term customer relationships. In this study, relational benefits (social, special treatment, and confidence benefits) were adopted to evaluate loyalty program benefits. Whether loyalty program benefits could facilitate emotional attachment and the sense of belongingness of the customers to the stores, as well as the effects of emotional attachment and sense of belongingness to self-disclosure intention and self-disclosure honesty, and finally to long-term customer re-lationships, would be examined. 810 valid questionnaires were collected. The analytical results of PLS-SEM indi-cated that loyalty program benefits could be measured by social, special treatment, and confidence benefits. Loyalty program benefits were also proved to positively affect emotional attachment and sense of belongingness, where the lat-ter two were found to have significant positive effects on self-disclosure intention and honesty. Higher self-disclosure intention and honesty were found to affect long-term customer relationships positively. Theoretical and managerial implications were provided.