Brand Loyalty
Introduction
The aim is to review the antecedents of brand loyalty in regard to the Mobile Telecom Sector. The telecommunication network in India is the fifth largest globally, which meets the expectations of global standards. It is the fastest emergent market in the world and gives adverse opportunities to other multinational companies in the global scenario. It has recorded a 40% increase of subscriber base in the year 2005. The stiff competition faced by the companies has made it venture into establishing permanent relationships with its consumers. For the past years, the companies in this industry have been faced with new competitive landscape characterized by increased dynamics and complexities. This change has forced companies to adapt and change from their static alignment. It has thus created the need for brand loyalty.
What then is brand loyalty? Brand loyalty definition is the factors that keep consumers re-purchasing the same product and sticking to the same firm or company. This creates a sense of loyalty towards that brand. There are three distinctive approaches used to measure loyalty. They are behavioral, attitudinal and composite measurements. Behavioral measurements use consistent and repetitive purchase as an indicator of loyalty. Attitudinal measurements utilize attitudinal data as a way to reflect the psychological and emotional attachments inherent in loyalty. It measures loyalty in a uni-dimensional perspective. The third approach, of composite measurements, combines the first two dimensions. It measures loyalty based on the customer’s product preferences, frequency of purchase, and the total amount of it, prosperity of brand-switching and recency of purchase. The utilization of both behavior and attitude increases the summative measure of loyalty. The three measures thus give a general principle. The higher the customer satisfaction recorded, the higher the loyalty attached by the consumer towards the brand.
Relationships that firms create with their consumers boost the amount of brand loyalty. This has seen to it that firms invest into relationship marketing. The investments consumers make into a relationship is one of the principal known reasons as to why there is growth of brand loyalty. Consumers tend to commit themselves in developing, establishing and maintaining relationships with the firms that provide superior valued benefits. A company that offers superior benefits sees to it that it retains its customers, based on brand loyalty. Consumers receive many benefits enormously during relationship building. Effective firm-consumer relationships also boosts consumer loyalty since it proves expensive for consumers to switch to other competitors. This is because they would lose the benefits that came while building the relationships.
Conclusion
Brand loyalty is not necessarily driven by internal quality improvements. It also relies more on traditional marketing compared to investments marketing. Brand loyalty also gets affected by customer’s satisfaction, attractiveness of rival services or products, brand reputation, and brand trust. If marketers want to promote brand loyalty, they ought to focus on relationship marketing activities that enhance the reputation of the brand. Marketers should maintain relationships with consumers through tailor-made programs and excellent feed-back to customers. Brand loyalty goes hand in hand with brand trust. Marketers could, therefore, seize this opportunity and focus on relationships that enhance brand trust. Brand trust then leads to customer’s satisfaction. Customer’s satisfaction provides a good base for the development of brand loyalty. The higher the customer’s satisfaction the higher chances of him/her to purchase the product or service again.
