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An Attempt To Establish The Relationship Between Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty
An Attempt To Establish The Relationship Between Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty
Abstract
The study intends to investigate the relationship between Customer Satisfaction and
Brand Loyalty. This research is confined and tested at Vishal Megamart and Big
Bazaar, situated in surrounding areas of Chandigarh (Panchkula and Zirakpur
respectively). This is achieved by utilizing an in-depth interview method to obtain the
questionnaire distributed to 60 respondents (30 each from both the malls).
Regression Analysis is carried out for establishing the relationship between these
two variables i.e. Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty. Furthermore, t-test is
also applied for testing the relationship between the individual variable of one store
with the same variable of another store. Calculated results are also in this favour that
there is relationship between the Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty and
comments that one variable is dependent and another is independent. The results of
the study will be helpful for the marketers and researchers who seeks the reasons
behind the dynamic factor, which is responsible for the major decisions related with
customers, price and products i.e. Customer Satisfaction.
Key words: Customer satisfaction, Brand loyalty, Vishal Megamart and Big Bazaar
INTRODUCTION
Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty is becoming an increasingly important factor
in Modern Retailing (Nair 2006). Mittal and Kamkura (2001) also addressed the link
between satisfaction and repurchase behavior. Over the past decade, retailers used
With the growth of competition, retailers compete with manufacturers for consumer
pull to increase their relative market power and their share of the total channel profit
1
Lecturer, Guru Gobind Singh Institute of Technology and Management Studies, Yamunanagar
pie. In doing so, the rise of the retailer as a brand is one of the most important trends
brand loyalty aspects has been conducted with special reference to Vishal Megamart
the actual manifestation of the state of satisfaction will vary from person to person
behaviors such as return and recommend rate. The level of satisfaction can also vary
depending on other options the customer may have and other products against which
Kotler (1998) defined customer satisfaction by stating that a customer is the most
Kotler (1998) noted that customer satisfaction, whether the buyer is satisfied after
customer requirements. Chang (1994) maintained that customer satisfaction was the
watchword for business. And Griffin (1997) claimed everyone was rushing around to
find ways to make customers happy by meeting and even exceeding their
expectations.
On the other hand, brand loyalty plays an important outcome of customer satisfaction.
It is found in a number of studies that if customers are satisfied then it can be resultant
into loyalty towards its brand also. Here it is vital/requirement to know the meaning
of brand.
A traditional definition of a brand was: “the name, associated with one or more items
in the product line, that is used to identify the source of character of the item(s)”
sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and
services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of
Within this view, as Keller (2003a) says, “technically speaking, the n, whenever a
marketer creates a new name, logo, or symbol for a new product, he or she has created
a brand” (p. 3). He recognizes, however, that brands today are much more than that.
As can be seen, according to these definitions brands had a simple and clear function
as identifiers.
Now it will be easy to understand the meaning of brand loyalty. Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty is more than simple repurchasing. Customers may repurchase a brand
then exhibited through repurchase behavior. This type of loyalty can be a great asset
to the firm: customers are willing to pay higher prices, they may cost less to serve,
Vishal is one of fastest growing retailing groups in India. Its outlets cater to almost all
price ranges. The showrooms have over 70,000 products range which fulfills all needs
of household, and catering under one roof. It is covering about 29, 90, 146 sq. ft. in
24 states across India. Each store gives the customer international quality goods and
prices hard to match. The group’s prime focus is on retailing. The Vishal stores offer
Big Bazaar is also a brand name which has also earned fame in the field of retailing.
It is not just another hypermarket, whereas it caters to every need of the customers’
family. Where Big Bazaar scores over other stores is its value for money proposition
for the Indian customers. With the ever increasing array of private labels, it has
opened the doors into the world of fashion and general merchandise including home
furnishings, utensils, crockery, cutlery, sports goods and much more at prices that are
affordable too. Big Bazaar plans to add much more to complete the shopping
LITERATURE REVIEW
The relevant literature covering customer satisfaction and brand loyalty has been
reviewed as under:
Oksana Mont and Andrius Plepys (2003) studied in their study ‘Customer
National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan (AIST)
approaches used in different disciplines for evaluating consumer behaviour. The study
analysed the applicability of existing research concepts, theories, and tools for
the design of product-service system to reduce the behavioural pitfalls that could be a
identifier, where a brand management team was responsible for creating and
coordinating the brand’s management program. In this situation, the brand manager
was not high in the company’s hierarchy; his focus was the short-term financial
results of single brands and single products in single markets. The basic objective was
the coordination with the manufacturing and sales departments in order to solve any
The study ‘Latino Brand Loyalty Study’, conducted by ‘Cultural Access Group, Los
Angles’ reveals that brand loyalty among Latinos within key product categories is
related to the relative position of the Latino respondent on the acculturation spectrum.
The developed tool is based on the responses from nearly 1,000 survey participants
from the market areas of Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York,
Phoenix, San Antonio, and San Jose/San Francisco, across a broad array of product
Francisco Guzmán (ESADE) explored and comments on the dramatic shift of central
concern of brand building in his study ‘Brand Building Towards Social Values:
Associating to Public Goods’. He pointed out the branding and its roles in traditional
setup were subject to constant review and redefinition. He state that the shift in focus
towards brands began when it was understood that they were something more than
mere identifiers. He quoted in his study that in the first case firms wishes to buy
production capacity (production orientation) and in the second they want to buy a
Jung-Chae Suh and Youjae Yi in his study ‘When Brand Attitudes Affect the
stability theories. He established structural equation modeling which shows that the
customer satisfaction has both direct and indirect effects on loyalty, whereas ad
attitudes and corporate image have only indirect effects through their mediating
effects of satisfaction on brand attitudes and loyalty, but it increases the indirect
are few other choices) and to be highly satisfied but not yet to be loyal. Retailer need
allocate their marketing efforts between satisfaction initiatives and loyalty programs.
If for example, the retailer finds that loyalty is associated with increases store branded
product, it could directly focus on enhancing its private label strategy (Chen et al
1996).
purchases and this serves to enhance the perception of the supplier’s reliability. Such
advances strengthen the positive attitude towards the supplier and allow the
loyalty and improved financial performance (Anderson, Fornell, & Lehman 1994)
while Reicheld (1996) suggests that satisfaction is significantly related to loyalty only
On the premise of the gap that the earlier research has not covered VISHAL
MEGAMART and BIG BAZAAR with special reference to customer satisfaction and
From the above discussion it is clear that in this study the exact nature of the
H2: Customer satisfaction regarding products / services of retail stores do not vary
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
DATA COLLECTION:
Items
Primary Data has been collected from 60 respondents (customers), i.e. 30 each from
Thereafter, on the basis of the Exploratory Survey, the suggestions were incorporated
ranging from ‘Very satisfied’ (5) to ‘Very dissatisfied’ (1) in an appropriate and
simplest form followed by addition and deletion of certain terms. The scale values
of negatively worded items were reversed before data processing. Then the
In this study the relevant sources of data are books, journals, magazines, brochures
In this study Brand Loyalty is taken as dependent variable and Customer Satisfaction
STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES
First, mean and standard deviation for responses obtained from VISHAL
MEGAMART and BIG BAZAAR customers was obtained in order to carry out
simple regression was used. Finally t-test was applied in order to analyze the mean
All possible efforts were made to maintain objectivity, validity and reliability of the
study, yet certain limitations need to be kept in mind whenever its findings are
ruled out.
2. The study is area specific and thus cannot be generalized for other
For the sake of convenience analysis and interpretations are divided into two parts
brand loyalty:
The purpose of the study is to establish and test the relationship between Customer
Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty. For revealing the relationship between customer
variables. Two variables include the dependent and independent variable i.e. Brand
is to justify the hypothesis. Further, for knowing the variability among the variables
R² is calculated.
Table 1
Regression Summary (with coefficient) of Customer Satisfaction as Predictors
of Brand Loyalty (Dependent Variable) using simple regression method
R R² Adj R² Observations
Customer satisfaction and Brand
1 0.85 0.663 0.64 30
Loyalty (VISHAL MEGAMART)
Customer satisfaction and Brand
2 0.79 0.601 0.59 30
Loyalty (BIG BAZAAR)
Table 1 reveals the results of simple regression analysis using mean values of 14
variable of brand loyalty is 66.3% (Lewin and Rubin 2004). Therefore, Hypothesis
Similarly, Table 1 also shows the results of simple regression analysis using mean
loyalty using 8 items. The value of R as 0.79 signifies positive correlation between
predictor (customer satisfaction) and the outcome (brand loyalty). The total variability
60.10%. Therefore, Hypothesis (H1) is also partially true in respect of BIG BAZAAR
customers.
The overall mean satisfaction regarding customer satisfaction and brand loyalty for
VISHAL MEGAMART found at 3.05 and 2.70 respectively. To assess whether mean
responses (meu2) of BIG BAZAAR customers, t-test was used. The observed value (-
0.193) (the critical value at 28 df was 1.699) was on left side of right-tailed t-
distribution curve that too on the acceptance side so the null Ho has been accepted.
Thereafter left tailed test was performed assuming (meu1) is less than (meu2) wherein
the value was clearly on the acceptance region thereby accepting the null hypothesis
again. This clearly means that on rejection of both the alternate hypothesis tested on
right-tailed and left tailed t-distribution, the null hypothesis is accepted that customer
Similarly, with respect to brand loyalty also the value of t (-0.304) was found to be on
the acceptance region. This provides acceptance to null hypothesis and rejection to
alternative hypothesis.
CONCLUSION
calculating regression analysis of mean values of the both variables it is clear that
there is positive correlation between the predictor and the outcome. It is resultant into
After analysis and testing of relationship of both variables an attempt is made to check
responses of BIG BAZAAR customers by using t-test. Results showed that there is
MEGAMART and BIG BAZAAR. Similarly the same results found in case of Brand
Loyalty of Both.
Policy Implications
satisfaction and brand loyalty clearly indicated that more strategic efforts by retailers
Further the mean differences across two samples was found to be insignificant thereby
indicating more stringent efforts on the part of VISHAL MEGAMART & BIG
BAZAAR store to enhance customer satisfaction and maintain their own image and
11.
Reichheld, Frederick F. (1993), "Loyalty-Based Management," Harvard
Gitman, Lawrence J.; Carl D. McDaniel (2005). The Future of Business: The
Website
(http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Private+label+strategy+and+customer+loyalty.-
a0172050248).