Brand Loyalty Essay

Simplified brand loyalty describes a status in which consumers determine their selves in; out of it they become committed to a brand. Thereby they continue purchasing products or services of a specific brand. At this point consumers rather spent more money on a product of a specific brand than buying from multiple suppliers within the same category. Mainly brand loyalty is a result of consumer’s behavior, which is enforced through a company’s measurements regarding branding. Branding is a process that a company runs through in order to establish a new brand. The ambition here is to strengthen a unique name and image for a product in

Effectively operating a successful Durable Medical Equipment Supplies business the owner has to integrate the aspects of quality and strategy. According to the words of Peter (2012), most of the healthcare organizations are using different tools for promoting the health care quality in a productive way. If medical supply business failed to provide quality medical equipment services to the individuals it would directly affect the operations (Gupta 2016, p.56). It is the duty of the medical equipment expert to use effective systems and techniques for measuring the performance of quality improvement initiatives and plans. Now we can evaluate the quality improvement initiatives and other related aspects in a detailed way.

The definition of Brand Loyalty is when consumers become committed to your brand and make repeat purchases over time. Brand loyalty is a result of consumer behavior and is affected by a persons preferences. Loyal customers will consistently purchase products from their preferred brands, regardless of convenience or price. Companies will often use different marketing strategies to cultivate loyal customers, be it is through loyalty programs (i.e. rewards programs) or trials and incentives (ex. samples and free gifts). (Investopedia)

While I’m an atypical U.S. consumer who doesn’t buy into marketing hype, I do have strong product/service loyalty affiliations. I’ll try to keep my Journal entry under 1000 words! I like to revisit the meaning of familiar words. Merriam-Webster (n.d.) defines loyalty as, “The quality or state or an instance of being loyal”. This is exactly what brand loyalty and loyalty programs are trying to create: an ongoing experience with multiple touch-points that captures followers and keeps them engaged through rewards, added value, and “prestige”. The goal is to lengthen “the lifetime value of the customer” (Tanner & Raymond, 2010, p. 284) which helps to maximize profits.

Brand loyalty is “when a consumer display a steadfast allegiance to a brand by repeatedly purchasing is”. (Text Book pg. 316) Every industry in the world benefits from brand loyalty because without consumers there is no industry. It is tremendously important for Aline Polo to identify areas in its brand that can improve and create loyalty with their consumer. The changes can be simple with little cost to the company. For example, a change in the current return policy from 20 days to 30 days can create peace of mine with the consumer. Comscore.com is a global media measurement and analytics company states; “consumer now expect free returns with 82% respondents saying they would complete the purchase if they could return the item to a store or have free return shipping, and 66% said they view a retailer’s return policy before making a purchase”. Aline Polo is a website based company with no physical store location. Frist time customer can be hesitant in purchasing product because they cannot physically touch the marital and become even more hesitant because of the return policy. When a company is attempting to create brand loyalty with consumer they must be aware and sensitive to their consumers' concerns. By adapting key aspect in the company that eases their consumers concerns they are able to make a relationship with the company and consumers who are brand-loyal typically exhibit less sensitivity to

Ted Baker’s brand differentiation and consumer loyalty can further be related to the characteristics theory, which was developed by Kelvin Lancaster in the mid-60’s and it is based on four key assumptions:

The research results showed that product quality was not the strongest factor that led to brand loyalty but market inertia and that product quality was more likely to lead

The behavior in which a consumer keeps buying a product time and again instead of buying products from other competitive companies is called Brand Loyalty. Brand loyalty can often be termed as Customer Loyalty, Brand Commitment, Product Loyalty etc. Brand Loyalty is seen among consumers when they realize that the product is better than the other products that are available in the market. This affinity of a consumer towards a particular product is considered to be brand loyalty. Although, this consumer behavior is not limited to a simple repetition of a purchase, there is also a psychological reasoning behind the consumers’ affinity towards behavior.

Brand trust is basically the emotional commitment of the customers with brand. Marketers are now days very much interested in trust because mostly it is observed that higher trust ratings are positively related to loyalty (Reast, 2005). Studies elaborated that trust plays an important role in customer repeated purchase decision and long term customer satisfaction (Ballester and Aleman, 2001). Brand trust development is a long term process, a trustworthy brand cares the customer expectations, fulfill promises and value its customers that eventually leads to brand trust and reliability (Ballester and Aleman, 2005). Present study is carried out to gauge the strength of relationship between brand trust and customer loyalty. Customer Satisfaction: Satisfaction is traditionally considered as an overall affective response resulting from the use of a product or service (Oliver 1981). It is believed to have a direct influence on customer loyalty (Mittal and Lassar, 1998; Oliver, 1997) and repurchase behaviors (Kumar, 2002; Mittal and Kamakura, 2001). Many agree on a direct affect of satisfaction on loyalty but some other researchers have focused more on identifying moderators and/or mediators of the effect

Creating and maintaining strong brand and a band wagon of loyal customers have become increasingly difficult in today's competitive environment due to proliferation of numerous brands in a generic product category. Brand loyalty has been shown to be associated with higher rates of return on investment due to increase in the market share. Past studies in this area reveal the dependence of researchers to administer the scale developed by Kapferer and Laurent as well as

Macdonald & Sharp, 2003 states that it is a strong influencer in the buying decision consideration process, as most of the consumers prefer buying brands they are aware and would like to be confident when making the purchase decision. The cost of acquiring customers is a significant expense for most businesses so higher brand awareness will help draw potential customers with little or no costs. Retaining customers is an even harder process than the former so strong brand loyalty among the customers will help sustain the business on a long term basis. Popular brands often use tools like newsletters, promotions, and satisfaction surveys to stay in touch with their existing to pool of customers in order to maintain brand awareness among consumers. Brands should also focus on research related to aided and unaided brand recall as it can help bring down marketing costs significantly while increasing the management’s understanding of the business (Holden, 1993). Aided recall looks at what thoughts/feelings the customer associates with the brand while unaided recall looks at what brands of a specific product category the customer can think of without any prompts. The former helps marketing professionals to focus on building brand awareness to attract new customers whereas the latter focuses on improving the brand image among existing customers. Simply put, the more people are aware of the brand

Customer loyalty is the key objective of customer relationship. Loyalty only occurs when there is a positive attitude to a brand perceived to be different. The individual market segments should be targeted in terms of developing customer loyalty. Loyalty is not just repeat buying but also involves the attitudes of customers to a brand. When a customer feels that the product or service was highly satisfying they develop loyalty. If they do not feel as if the product and service was not satisfying there might negative effects.

Goodson, S. (2011). Is brand loyalty the core to Apple’s success? Retrieved January 22, 2014. From http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare//2011/11/27/is-brand-loyalty-the-core0to-apples-success-2/

Also, the average person today in the marketplace is becoming more and more aware of their style of living and are trying to choose a healthier path. The challenge though, is not only acquiring loyal customers, but acquiring loyal ones that are also profitable. There are many cases throughout the marketplace where a consumer may prefer a particular brand such as a phone, car, or clothing, but have never actually bought any of these items from the original manufacturer. This prohibits the company from receiving any type of benefit from the loyalty. This and many other reasons is why you see companies today implementing loyalty programs. These are programs that help provide incentives for customers to do repeat business with you. While they are primarily aimed at rewarding those in their current consumer base, it is also a tool for attracting new customers away from competitors. This is achieved by current consumers using word-of-mouth to spread the benefits of your firm, or by popular advertisements that can be seen via the internet or television. Although it may not be the first thing that comes to mind, the Four P’s of the marketing mix are major influencers of brand loyalty. This is especially true when referring to product and promotion.

Thus, companies seek to strengthen customer loyalty. Brand loyalty is considered to tilt the consumer to purchase the package / product specific brand (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978). Later, Oliver (1997) defined loyalty as "a deeply held commitment to REBUY or repatronize preferred product / service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing activities, which would result in causing switching behavior "(p. 34). This conceptual definition covers two different aspects of loyalty: the behavioral. This is consistent with an integrated conceptual framework proposed by Dick and Basu (1994), that customer loyalty is regarded as a "power relationship between the relative position of the individual and repeat