IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v129y2021icp70-82.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Loyalty programs as travel companions: Complementary service features across customer journey stages

Author

Listed:
  • Steinhoff, Lena
  • Zondag, Marcellis M.

Abstract

Traditionally, loyalty programs have rewarded members following their purchases. However, current versions of these programs feature extended scopes of benefits, including technology-facilitated complementary service features that span multiple purchase stages. Using a multimethod approach, this research explores the potential of loyalty programs to become meaningful “travel companions” along the customer’s journey. First, a qualitative focus group study finds the different roles of loyalty programs: purchase process facilitation (prepurchase stage), value enhancement (purchase stage), and reassurance (postpurchase stage). Then, a survey of members of a grocery retailer’s loyalty program shows the relative importance of stage-specific interactions with service features. Managers can apply these insights for designing their loyalty program to leverage its full benefits and help members co-create value with technological support.

Suggested Citation

  • Steinhoff, Lena & Zondag, Marcellis M., 2021. "Loyalty programs as travel companions: Complementary service features across customer journey stages," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 70-82.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:129:y:2021:i:c:p:70-82
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296321000953
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herhausen, Dennis & Kleinlercher, Kristina & Verhoef, Peter C. & Emrich, Oliver & Rudolph, Thomas, 2019. "Loyalty Formation for Different Customer Journey Segments," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 9-29.
    2. Virginie Bruneau & Valérie Swaen & Pietro Zidda, 2018. "Are loyalty program members really engaged? Measuring customer engagement in loyalty programs," Post-Print hal-01820365, HAL.
    3. V. Kumar & Werner Reinartz, 2018. "Customer Relationship Management," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, Springer, edition 3, number 978-3-662-55381-7, June.
    4. Rajiv Lal & David Bell, 2003. "The Impact of Frequent Shopper Programs in Grocery Retailing," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 179-202, June.
    5. Aîda Mimouni-Chaabane & Pierre Volle, 2010. "Perceived Benefits of Loyalty Programs: Scale Development and Implications for Relational Strategies," Post-Print halshs-00638594, HAL.
    6. Brashear-Alejandro, Thomas & Kang, Jun & Groza, Mark D., 2016. "Leveraging loyalty programs to build customer–company identification," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 1190-1198.
    7. Jiang, Kai & Luk, Sherriff Ting-kwong & Cardinali, Silvio, 2018. "The role of pre-consumption experience in perceived value of retailer brands: Consumers' experience from emerging markets," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 374-385.
    8. Walters, Rockney G. & Jamil, Maqbul, 2003. "Exploring the relationships between shopping trip type, purchases of products on promotion, and shopping basket profit," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 17-29, January.
    9. Dorotic, Matilda & Verhoef, Peter C. & Fok, Dennis & Bijmolt, Tammo H.A., 2014. "Reward redemption effects in a loyalty program when customers choose how much and when to redeem," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 339-355.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1603 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Bijmolt, Tammo H. A. & Dorotic, Matilda & Verhoef, Peter C., 2011. "Loyalty Programs: Generalizations on Their Adoption, Effectiveness and Design," Foundations and Trends(R) in Marketing, now publishers, vol. 5(4), pages 197-258, November.
    12. Bruneau, Virginie & Swaen, Valérie & Zidda, Pietro, 2018. "Are loyalty program members really engaged? Measuring customer engagement with loyalty programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 144-158.
    13. Alexander Bleier & Maik Eisenbeiss, 2015. "Personalized Online Advertising Effectiveness: The Interplay of What, When, and Where," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(5), pages 669-688, September.
    14. Lena Steinhoff & Robert W. Palmatier, 2016. "Understanding loyalty program effectiveness: managing target and bystander effects," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 88-107, January.
    15. Voorhees, Clay M. & Fombelle, Paul W. & Gregoire, Yany & Bone, Sterling & Gustafsson, Anders & Sousa, Rui & Walkowiak, Travis, 2017. "Service encounters, experiences and the customer journey: Defining the field and a call to expand our lens," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 269-280.
    16. Bridson, Kerrie & Evans, Jody & Hickman, Melissa, 2008. "Assessing the relationship between loyalty program attributes, store satisfaction and store loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 364-374.
    17. Kaiquan Xu & Jason Chan & Anindya Ghose & Sang Pil Han, 2017. "Battle of the Channels: The Impact of Tablets on Digital Commerce," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1469-1492, May.
    18. Xavier Drèze & Joseph C. Nunes, 2009. "Feeling Superior: The Impact of Loyalty Program Structure on Consumers' Perceptions of Status," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(6), pages 890-905, April.
    19. Smith, Andrew & Sparks, Leigh, 2009. ""It's nice to get a wee treat if you've had a bad week": Consumer motivations in retail loyalty scheme points redemption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 542-547, May.
    20. Els Breugelmans & Tammo Bijmolt & Jie Zhang & Leonardo Basso & Matilda Dorotic & Praveen Kopalle & Alec Minnema & Willem Mijnlieff & Nancy Wünderlich, 2015. "Advancing research on loyalty programs: a future research agenda," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 127-139, June.
    21. Anita Pansari & V. Kumar, 2017. "Customer engagement: the construct, antecedents, and consequences," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 294-311, May.
    22. Mimouni-Chaabane, Aîda & Volle, Pierre, 2010. "Perceived benefits of loyalty programs: Scale development and implications for relational strategies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 32-37, January.
    23. Lars Meyer-Waarden & Christophe Benavent, 2009. "Grocery retail loyalty program effects: self-selection or purchase behavior change?," Post-Print hal-01913030, HAL.
    24. Konuş, Umut & Verhoef, Peter C. & Neslin, Scott A., 2008. "Multichannel Shopper Segments and Their Covariates," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(4), pages 398-413.
    25. De Keyser, Arne & Schepers, Jeroen & Konuş, Umut, 2015. "Multichannel customer segmentation: Does the after-sales channel matter? A replication and extension," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 453-456.
    26. Sarantopoulos, Panagiotis & Theotokis, Aristeidis & Pramatari, Katerina & Doukidis, Georgios, 2016. "Shopping missions: An analytical method for the identification of shopper need states," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 1043-1052.
    27. Kang, Jun & Alejandro, Thomas Brashear & Groza, Mark D., 2015. "Customer–company identification and the effectiveness of loyalty programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 464-471.
    28. Virginie Bruneau & Valérie Swaen & Pietro Zidda, 2018. "Are loyalty program members really engaged? Measuring customer engagement with loyalty programs," Post-Print hal-02117696, HAL.
    29. Kivetz, Ran & Simonson, Itamar, 2003. "The Role of Effort Advantage in Consumer Response to Loyalty Programs: The Idiosyncratic Fit Heuristic," Research Papers 1738r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    30. Praveen K. Kopalle & Yacheng Sun & Scott A. Neslin & Baohong Sun & Vanitha Swaminathan, 2012. "The Joint Sales Impact of Frequency Reward and Customer Tier Components of Loyalty Programs," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 216-235, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ruan, Yanya & Mezei, József, 2022. "When do AI chatbots lead to higher customer satisfaction than human frontline employees in online shopping assistance? Considering product attribute type," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    2. Dariusz Dudek & Marcin Lipowski & Ilona Bondos, 2021. "Changing Energy Supplier on the Market with a Strong Position of Incumbent Suppliers—Polish Example," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Di Domenico, Giandomenico & Premazzi, Katia & Cugini, Antonella, 2022. "“I will pay you more, as long as you are transparent!”: An investigation of the pick-your-price participative pricing mechanism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 403-419.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Yanyan & Mandler, Timo & Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2021. "Three decades of research on loyalty programs: A literature review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 179-197.
    2. Septianto, Felix & An, Jake & Chiew, Tung Moi & Paramita, Widya & Tanudharma, Istiharini, 2019. "The similar versus divergent effects of pride and happiness on the effectiveness of loyalty programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 12-22.
    3. Alex Belli & Anne-Maree O’Rourke & François A. Carrillat & Ljubomir Pupovac & Valentyna Melnyk & Ekaterina Napolova, 2022. "40 years of loyalty programs: how effective are they? Generalizations from a meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 147-173, January.
    4. Malika Chaudhuri & Clay M. Voorhees & Jonathan M. Beck, 2019. "The effects of loyalty program introduction and design on short- and long-term sales and gross profits," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 640-658, July.
    5. Faramarzi, Ashkan & Bhattacharya, Abhi, 2021. "The economic worth of loyalty programs: An event study analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 313-323.
    6. Bombaij, Nick J.F. & Dekimpe, Marnik G., 2020. "When do loyalty programs work? The moderating role of design, retailer-strategy, and country characteristics," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 175-195.
    7. Li, Chen & Swaminathan, Srinivasan & Kim, Junhee, 2021. "The role of marketing channels in consumers’ promotional point redemption decisions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 314-323.
    8. Meyer-Waarden, Lars & Bruwer, Johan & Galan, Jean-Philippe, 2023. "Loyalty programs, loyalty engagement and customer engagement with the company brand: Consumer-centric behavioral psychology insights from three industries," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Bombaij, Nick, 2021. "Effectiveness of loyalty programs," Other publications TiSEM 095c506d-5b5c-4ea3-9b41-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Bazargan, Amirhossein & Karray, Salma & Zolfaghari, Saeed, 2017. "Modeling reward expiry for loyalty programs in a competitive market," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 352-364.
    11. Jisu J. Kim & Lena Steinhoff & Robert W. Palmatier, 2021. "An emerging theory of loyalty program dynamics," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 71-95, January.
    12. Mimouni Chaabane, Aida & Pez, Virginie, 2017. "“Make me feel special†: Are hierarchical loyalty programs a panacea for all brands? The role of brand concept," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 108-117.
    13. Bruneau, Virginie & Swaen, Valérie & Zidda, Pietro, 2018. "Are loyalty program members really engaged? Measuring customer engagement with loyalty programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 144-158.
    14. Atul Purohit & Urjita Thakar, 2019. "Role of information and communication technology in improving loyalty program effectiveness: a comprehensive approach and future research agenda," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 259-280, June.
    15. Bies, Suzanne M.T.A. & Bronnenberg, Bart J. & Gijsbrechts, Els, 2021. "How push messaging impacts consumer spending and reward redemption in store-loyalty programs," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 877-899.
    16. Bies, Suzanne, 2022. "Examining the effectiveness of activation techniques on consumer behavior in temporary loyalty programs," Other publications TiSEM ade86df3-4846-4318-938f-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Els Breugelmans & Yuping Liu-Thompkins, 2017. "The effect of loyalty program expiration policy on consumer behavior," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 537-550, December.
    18. Blanca I. Hernández-Ortega & Michael A. Stanko & Rishika Rishika & Francisco-Jose Molina-Castillo & José Franco, 2022. "Brand-generated social media content and its differential impact on loyalty program members," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(5), pages 1071-1090, September.
    19. Sonja Fourie & Michael Goldman & Michael McCall, 2023. "Designing for loyalty programme effectiveness in the financial services industry," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 502-525, September.
    20. Cocco, Helen & Demoulin, Nathalie T.M., 2022. "Designing a seamless shopping journey through omnichannel retailer integration," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 461-475.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:129:y:2021:i:c:p:70-82. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.