کتاب Rela‌tionship between customer engagement and brand loyalty

Rela‌tionship between customer engagement and brand loyalty (Introduction)

Over the last decades, marketing landscapes have been changed so that customers are not merely company messages’ passive receivers, however, they are actively engaged in interactive associations. The interactions between customer and companies alters from traditional one-way mass media such as print, television, and radio to interactive mobile social, and online platforms. Therefore, practicing managers progressively look for means for engaging customers with their products via multiple mobile and online media. Studies in this field changes as well from construction of customary satisfaction to further active ‘involvement’, ‘experience’ and more currently ‘engagement’ in customer selection models for predicting loyalty. Nevertheless, there is also greatly conceptual research on customer engagement (Brodie et al., 2011; Verhoef et al., 2010; Alexander and Jaakkola, 2014) and the literature is also restricted on measurement, operationalization, and experimental proof of the construct. Moreover, the first screen for a great customer base engagement is via mobile device that is still unknown.

The involvement of community members in brand-related activities is a crucial element for the success of brand communities. Engagement refers to the emotional involvement in the behavioral actions of individuals towards something (Vivek et al., 2012). Conceptually and empirically, engagement has been studied in subjects like marketing (Brodie et al., 2011), sociology (Friedland & 12  Doctorate in Business Administration Morimoto, 2013), psychology (Saveanu & Saveanu, 2012; Garczynski et al., 2013), organisational behavior (Margolis & Molinsky, 2008; Kataria et al., 2013). Customer engagement is a process of strengthening a person’s involvement in organizational activities and capturing the set of behavioral patterns towards brand offerings. From the past few decades, brand loyalty is considered as an umbilical issue for companies to develop strong customers based on the company. Gerald (2011) stated in his study that the loyalty level of the customers mainly reflects the behaviour of the customer for a specific brand, which perceived at the time of their purchasing the brand (Polas, 2018).

Brand loyalty is the ultimate goal of a company that has a product with a particular brand. The preference for buying a specific brand on a product shelf is called brand loyalty. Customers have found out that their brand is offering them an intact product, with levels of quality at a suitable price. This perception of the customer becomes the basis for the repetitive purchasing of that product. Customers carry out the trial purchase from a product with a brand and are willing to repeat the purchasing of the same brand as they are satisfied because they are familiar with that product. The brand loyalists have the same thought that they are committed to the brand, willing to spend more money on a brand than the other brands, recommend the brand to others (Bravo and Martinez, 2007). As Dato-on (2014) reported, customers are used to selecting a specific company for their daily life, and brand loyalty is the attributes that make the customers remain connected with the particular company for their enduring period. By developing a robust relationship between a company and the customers through creating the brand loyalty, they can obtain sustainable benefit within the business environment.  Although loyalty has been introduced as a single dimension concept primarily, but later as a concept with two dimensions: attitudinal loyalty (brand preference) and behavioral loyalty (market share), researchers believe that loyalty may be a combination of both. A composite definition of loyalty suggests that loyalty should always include attitude, tendency, and post-purchase behavior. As a personal concept, loyalty is a feeling or an attitude of dependency and a kindly relationship (Sharyan, 2005). Aaker has also introduced brand loyalty to brand dependency. This definition reflects the possibility of replacing the brand by users, especially in the case of changing the attributes and price of the brand. The probable that users can communicate with brands by a strong kindly relationship is very important for loyalty research. As the theory of dependence in psychological studies indicates that the degree of kindly relationship to an object reflects the nature of an individual’s interaction with that object (Kim, 2007).

In the field of marketing, an emerging research body has explored various relationships, constructs, antecedents, and consequences of customer engagement (Munjal and Mishra, 2019). According to the importance of the subject and as there is no comprehensive research on this issue, the aim of the present study is the investigation relationship between customer engagement with brand loyalty in the confectionery and chocolate industry.

Customer Engagement: the gaps between the research and definition of customer engagement denotes “ behavioral manifestations of the customer focusing on a brand or firm, away from buying which leads to the motivational stimulants (Van Doorn et al., 2010, p. 254). The customer involvement concept is based on the interactions of the user with the company or brand and they are implications for creating relationship. Furthermore, it was suggested that customer involvement is associated with allegiance (Bowden, 2009), thus, and it is vital to achieve long-term company achievement.

Hence, to understand the customer involvement, managerial and theoretical implications are important since it affects key marketing variables. Regardless of the current interest in customer involvement within the marketing literature, the study is mainly conceptual in this regard (Kumar et al., 2010, van Doorn et al., 2010, Verhoef et al., 2010). Not enough knowledge exists about the motivations for engagement of the customer and less knowledge exists regarding the difference between motivations in various engagement behaviours. In this essay, it is attempted to state this gap. and it was focused on external and internal motivations. Particularly, we consider the perceived advantages related to a widespread list of engagement behaviours. To analyse analysis data through hierarchical cluster analysis, we make a customer engagement behaviours’ typology differing on their motivational advantages