types of services and different degrees of consumer involvement
Frank Veltkamp
September 2009
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MscBA Marketing Marketing Management
Author: Supervisor:
Frank Veltkamp Dr. S. Gensler Borkeldsweg 22
7451 SM Holten N: s1410822 T: 06 30347297
Summary
This study investigates the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers for different types of services and different degrees of consumer involvement. The present study builds on earlier research by Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008). They developed a model that reflects the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers. These drivers of customer loyalty are: value equity, relationship equity, and brand equity. The present research applies the model of Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) in order to investigate whether the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers differs for different types of services and different degrees of consumer involvement.
The distinction in different services is based on theory by Nelson (1970) and Darby and Karni (1973), and results in the following service types: search-, experience-, and credence services. This qualification is mainly based on the “tangibility” of goods/services. For example: search-dominant services are somewhat similar to tangible goods in that both possess attributes that consumers can evaluate prior to purchase and consumption (Krishnan and Hartline 2001). Durvasula, Lysonski, Mehta, and Buck (2004) and Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990) note that credence services hardly have any tangible attributes, therefore future benefits of these services are difficult to prove. Based on this typology and subsequent theoretical presumptions this research assumes that relationship equity and brand equity are more important loyalty drivers for credence service situations, and the value equity loyalty driver is more important in search service situations.
Table of contents Summary... 2 Table of contents ... 4 1. Introduction... 5 2. Theoretical framework ... 9 2.1. Customer loyalty 9 2.2. Loyalty drivers 10 2.3. Classification of services and hypotheses 14 2.4. Consumer involvement and hypotheses 19 3. Conceptual model... 22
4. Research design ... 24
4.1 Research model and analyzing method 24 4.2. Research procedure 27 4.2.1 Pre-test... 29
4.3. Survey measures 31 4.4. Data Collection and Sample 35 5. Results ... 36
5.1. Representativeness of sample 36 5.2. Measuring items and internal reliability 37 5.3. Testing the simple regression model 38 5.4. Results of hypotheses 39 6. Conclusions and recommendations ... 41
6.1. Discussion 41 6.2. Implications 45 4.3. Limitations and directions for further research 46 References ... 49
1. Introduction
Since the last two decades of the 20th century marketing has undergone a directional change into relationship marketing. At the centre of this concept is the development and maintenance of long-term relationships between companies and its customers (Berger and Nasr 1998). An important underlying reason for the raise of relationship marketing is that companies benefit more from maintaining long-term customer relationships (in terms of profit) than short term customer relationships (Reicheld and Sasser 1990; Morgan and Hunt 1994; Sheth and Parvatiyar 1995, Reicheld 2003), although this relationship between loyalty and profitability seems to be weaker than assumed (Reinartz and Kumar 2000). The idea of customer loyalty plays an important role in relationship marketing (Verhoef 2003). The stronger the loyalty of a customer towards a company, the stronger its relationship with that company will be.
Reichheld (2003) notes that the important ratio behind the attractiveness of loyal customers, and relationship marketing, is that loyal customers are assumed to be more profitable because:
• Loyal customers reduce the company’s acquisition costs because these
customers come back without the costs to bring them in.
• Due to their familiarity with ordering, paying and transacting the costs to serve loyal customers are lower.
• Loyal customers tend to buy more over time and are less price sensitive, they devote a larger share of their wallet to the company they feel good about.
• Loyal customers are the strongest advocates of a company, i.e. they create word-of-mouth advertisement. This reduces, for instance, acquisition costs.
high interest in the current sphere of the accountability of marketing (Berger and Nasr 1998; Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml 2004).
By shortly reviewing the importance of relationship marketing and customer loyalty, the next question arises: how to make customers loyal? Johnson, Herrmann, and Huber (2006) and Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) distinguish three drivers of loyalty: value equity, brand equity and relationship equity. Value equity is the objective assessment of the utility of a brand based on perceptions of the customer about what is given up for what is received. Brand equity is more subjective and intangible. It is the assessment of a brand, beyond its objectively perceived value. Finally, relationship equity is the tendency of customers to stay in a relationship with the brand, beyond objective and subjective assessments of the brand. Summarizing, customer loyalty, and its derivative future sales, are influenced by marketing activities targeted toward increasing the perceived equity of the three strategic fields of investment: value, brand, and relationship (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). However, how do these drivers relate to customer loyalty. In other words, what is the single importance of these drivers on customer loyalty?
Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) determined the importance of these drivers of customer loyalty for a European do-it-yourself retailer. Their research shows that all three customer equity drivers positively influence customer loyalty. Value equity was the most important customer loyalty driver, followed by brand equity and relationship equity. However, they suggest that these results are not generalizable to other industries (different types of products/services), whereas product involvement might also play a role in the importance of the three drivers.
vary among different kinds of services. The classification in search, experience and credence services, plays an important role in here (Nelson 1970; Darby and Karni 1973; Zeithaml 1981; Alford and Sherrell 1996; Brady 2001; Krishnan and Hartline 2001; Bolton, Lemon, and Verhoef 2004; Eisingerich and Bell 2007). The difference in the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers is assumed for the level of consumer involvement as well. Consumer behavior is typified by different states of decision making. Consumer involvement often plays an important role in the way of decision making (Zaichkowsky 1985). Literature that investigated the role of consumer involvement in consumers’ decision making suggests that consumer involvement influences the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983; Varki and Wong 2003; Bolton, Lemon, and Verhoef 2004; Percy and Elliott 2005; Kinard and Capella 2006; Keller 2008).
Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate whether the type of service and the degree of consumer involvement influence the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers.
The resulting research questions are:
1. How does the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers differ for differences in type of service (search versus credence service)?
2. How does the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers differ for differences in consumer involvement (low versus high involvement)?
The contribution of the present research is testing if the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers differ among different types of services and the degree of consumer involvement. As stated earlier, customer loyalty is an important issue in marketing nowadays. The variables that drive customer loyalty are known, however these drivers will react differently in certain circumstances (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). Two of these situations will be investigated in the present research: type of service and degree of consumer involvement.
implications will be given. The study ends with a section about limitations and directions for further research.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. Customer loyalty
Broadly, customer loyalty is defined as “a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior” (Oliver 1999). Oliver notes that true customer loyalty is embedded in a four phase structure: cognitive loyalty, affective loyalty, conative loyalty and action loyalty. The sequence of these phases corresponds to weaker versus stronger states of customer loyalty. Oliver describes these phases of loyalty as follows:
- Cognitive loyalty: is based on brand attribute information solely. Brand attribute information are, for instance, price and quality features. Loyalty at this phase is directed toward brand attribute information and is of a shallow nature;
- Affective loyalty: a liking or attitude toward the brand has developed on the basis of cumulatively satisfying experiences. The loyalty at this phase consists of a cognitive plus an affective component. The cognitive component is directly subject to counter arguments, however the cognitive component is hard to untie;
- Conative loyalty: is influenced by repeated episodes of positive affect
toward the brand. Conation means a brand-specific
commitment/intention to repurchase. This loyalty state is related to motivation, not real action;
The preceding elaboration of loyalty into four phases shows a clear relationship with the earlier made definition of customer loyalty. Namely, conative loyalty is similar to the "deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future," whereas action loyalty is analogous to rebuying "despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior".
Previously, customer loyalty is defined in detail. This description of customer loyalty showed four phases of loyalty with action loyalty as ultimate state of customer loyalty. Specifying customer loyalty is necessary because these four states of loyalty can all be used as research variables in the present research. Therefore, it is important to note beforehand that this research considers conative loyalty. This is partly due to the application of the model developed by Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008). Their model states that customer loyalty is driven by certain variables, described next. The point is that customer loyalty is viewed as loyalty intentions in their model. This description of customer loyalty is analogous to the previous outlined state of conative loyalty. In short, when the term customer loyalty is used in the remainder of this study this refers to conative loyalty.
As mentioned earlier, the relevance of customer loyalty is that this construct has become very important in relationship marketing. The stronger the loyalty of a customer towards a company, the stronger its relationship with that company will be (Verhoef 2003). Moreover, relationship marketing posits that companies benefit more from loyal (long term) customers (in terms of profit) than short term customer relationships (Reicheld and Sasser 1990; Morgan and Hunt 1994; Sheth and Parvatiyar 1995; Reicheld 2003).
2.2. Loyalty drivers
Value equity: the objective assessment of the utility of a product based on perceptions of the customer about what is given up for what is received. It is a relative judgment of inputs versus outcomes (Ostrom, Amy and Iacobucci 1995; Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). The price-quality ratio of a product reflects this construct (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008) Important to note is that service quality is conceptualized differently by several researchers. However, the conceptualizations of service quality have in common that service quality is viewed as a multi-level construct (Grönroos 1984; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1988; Rust and Oliver 1994; Brady and Cronin 2001). Brady and Cronin (2001) report that service quality can be divided in three dimensions: outcome quality, interaction quality, and physical environment quality. Especially outcome quality, the actual service, will play an important role in this research. Perceptions of the tangible evidence and the valence of the service (overall judgment of the service into good or bad) are important sub-dimensions of outcome quality.
are likely to increase customer loyalty. Finally, Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml (2004) state in their “return on marketing” model that value equity affects a customer’s retention rate, a measure analogous to loyalty intentions.
Brand equity: the subjective, emotional and intangible assessment of a brand. It is the assessment of a brand, beyond its objectively perceived value. If customers assess a brand as strong, unique, favorable and desirable, then the brand equity will be high. When customers perceive a brand as having a favorable, strong and unique image, it could positively influence their likelihood of choosing that particular brand rather than offerings of competitors (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). Besides the brand image component, brand awareness is a driver of brand equity as well (Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml 2004).
Keller (1993) defines brand equity as the differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand. He notes that one of the characteristics of brands having strong brand equity is stronger brand loyalty. This claim is consistent with that of Aaker (1991) who already argued that brand loyalty could be considered both a dimension and an outcome of brand equity. Taylor, Celuch, and Goodwin (2004) report that conative and action loyalty are largely a function of brand equity. Furthermore, Johnson, Herrmann, and Huber (2006) note that brand equity has a direct, positive effect on loyalty intentions, this effect increases as a market grows. Bolton, Lemon, and Verhoef (2004) suggest that a favorable perception of a brand influences affective commitment. Affective commitment is the desire to maintain a relationship, it is based on feelings of loyalty and affiliation. From this description it could be drawn that affective commitment is highly related to loyalty intention (conative loyalty). Moreover, Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml (2004) conclude that brand equity influences the customer’s perceptions and thereby the repurchase probability.
addition, experiences with other customers are also a component of relationship equity.
Consumers who believe that they are treated better than others are likely to be satisfied with the offering, brand, or store and therefore will become more loyal (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). The relationship between consumer trust (an important item of relationship equity) and loyalty is based on two streams. On the one hand, consumer trust in a certain brand neutralizes the perceived risk associated with the specific provider. When providers behave in a way that builds consumer trust, the perceived risk with the specific service provider is likely to reduce. This way of acting enables the consumer to make confident predictions about the provider’s future behaviors (Morgan and Hunt 1994; Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman 1995). Moreover, when service providers’ behaviors reduce relational risk, literature argues that consumers are likely to act “cooperatively” toward such a trustworthy service provider to maintain trust, by demonstrating behavioral evidence of their loyalty (Gassenheimer, Houston, and Davis 1998). On the other hand, trust also influences loyalty by influencing the consumer’s perception of congruence in values with the provider. When there is perceived similarity in values between the firm and the consumer, the consumer’s presence in a relationship is enhanced, promoting reciprocity and contributing to relational commitment. Such value congruence is significantly related to the consumer’s loyalty and satisfaction (Gwinner, Gremler, and Bitner 1998). In addition, Sirdeshmukh, Singh, Sabol (2002) show that the consumer’s trust in a service provider has a significant direct effect on loyalty. Finally about trust and consumer loyalty, Taylor, Celuch, and Goodwin (2004) note that trust is significantly related to conative and action loyalty. Hennig- Thurau, Gwinner, and Gremler (2002) state about the relationship construct and loyalty that the relationship construct, satisfaction, and loyalty are highly related to each other. Finally, Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml (2004) already showed a relationship between relationship equity and customer loyalty in their “return on marketing” model.
Finally, hypotheses are developed. Subsequently, the same sequence is performed for the consumer involvement construct.
2.3. Classification of services and hypotheses
Services comprise an expanding source of employment in the today’s economy and are of significant interest to both academicians and practitioners. There are various ways of defining services, however no single definition of services is appropriate of encompassing the full variety of services and the complex attributes that characterize them. Services differ on a lot of variables from each other and can be typified based on these
variables. Therefore, researchers built typologies, taxonomies, or
classification schemes in order to be more able in addressing the complexities of services (Cook, Goh, and Chung 1999).
evaluation requires expertise to make a reliable assessment. Claim verification of credence goods would take an unrealistically long time. Durvasula, Lysonski, Mehta, and Buck (2004) support this by noting that credence services hardly have any tangible attributes, therefore future benefits of these services are difficult to prove. Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990) also state that credence services are characterized by intangibility. In contrast, search-dominant services are somewhat similar to tangible goods in that both possess attributes that consumers can evaluate prior to purchase and consumption (Krishnan and Hartline 2001). Thus, the quantity of knowledge available to the consumer, prior to purchase, varies with the lowest for credence-based products and the highest for search-based products. Although these definitions are presented in terms of goods, services can be classified around this typology as well (Alford and Sherrel 1996; Davies, Baron, Gear, and Read 1999; Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999; Krishnan and Hartline 2001; Galetzka, Verhoeven, and Pruyn 2006)
The three types of services, in terms of search, experience and credence can be located at an evaluation continuum. If the service has many search attributes, then the service is easy to evaluate. On the other hand, if the service consists of many credence attributes, then it is very hard to evaluate the service (Alford and Sherrel 1996). This is illustrated by the following figure.
Figure 1: search, experience and credence services and possibility to evaluate.
Credence services Experience services Search services
Search services are very scarce (Goyal 2006). However, examples of search services are a city bus tour, subscription to a magazine portfolio (Galetzka, Verhoeven, and Pruyn 2006), a checking account and selecting a mail service (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999). Examples of experience services are: (fast-food) restaurants (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999; Galetzka, Verhoeven, and Pruyn 2006; Kinard and Capella 2006), hairdresser (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999; Galetzka, Verhoeven, and Pruyn 2006). Finally, credence services could be legal services, dentist (Galetzka, Verhoeven, and Pruyn 2006; Garry 2007), financial services like financial advising/planning, funds management (Eisingerich and Bell 2007) life insurances, brokerage, estate planning and health insurance (Durvasula, Lysonski, Mehta, and Buck 2004).
What a service company provides is often difficult for customers to assess and understand. Even if the service concept is clear and the prerequisites for a quality service are in place the intangibility of services results in customers placing great emphasis on the trust they have in a service company instead of evaluating services around attributes as price, quality and reliability. This is in contrast when considering products. In this case price, quality and reliability are important drivers of the preference for certain products (Edvardsson, Johnson, Gustafsson, and Strandvik 2000).
state that credence services are characterized by intangibility and unsophisticated buyers, in these cases relationships with the seller become important. High credence services ask for high levels of trust between service provider and the customer, i.e. financial planning services. The long time horizon of service delivery contribute to a high level of uncertainty about, and difficulty in evaluating service quality outcomes. Because client’s uncertainty can imply the possibility of service failure and negative outcomes, trust becomes vital to long-lasting relationships (Eisingerich and Bell 2007). Moreover, relationship marketing is recommended as a strategy to overcome service intangibility and may be appropriate for "credence" services (Zeithaml 1981). Furthermore, affective reactions, instead of quality assessments, to the service provider are an important basis to judge a credence service provider on (Alford and Sherrell 1996). The amount and quality of information available is minor in the case of a credence service, therefore the degree of perceived risk is expected to be higher compared to more tangible services such as search services. This intangibility of credence services may complicate the formation of expectations and therefore it is hard to have expectations about the quality (outcome) of this type of services (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999; Bebko 2000). Bolton, Lemon, and Verhoef (2004) state the following about the effect of preceived risk: Service industries with high perceived risk have more opportunities to build customer relationships. If firms adopt a relational strategy in these markets, the effect of marketing instruments on customer behavior should be stronger.
H1: The loyalty driver “relationship equity” is more important for credence services than for search services.
In the case of search services the above reasoning should be turned around. Search services can be more easily evaluated around attributes prior to purchase (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999). The higher the “tangibility” of the characteristics of services the more important attributes like price, quality and reliability will be (Edvardsson et al. 2000). These attributes as price, quality and reliability cover the value equity dimension. Because search services can be more easily evaluated around these tangible characteristics, I propose that the value equity loyalty driver is more important for search services than for credence services.
H 2: The loyalty driver “value equity” is more important for search services than for credence services.
names particularly play a role when claims are difficult to evaluate prior to purchase. In addition, Aish, Ennew, and McKechnie (2003) state that conceptually brands play an important role in consumer selection decisions relating to services and particularly so with respect to highly intangible services.
When translating this way of consumers’ decision making to the case of customer loyalty and its drivers, it seems that besides of the relationship equity loyalty driver the brand equity loyalty driver is important as well in cases of credence services.
H3: The loyalty driver "brand equity” is more important for credence services than for search services.
2.4. Consumer involvement and hypotheses
Consumer behavior is typified by different states of decision making. The average consumer has to make a lot of choices every day. However, only a few of those decisions are perceived of real importance. For these major decisions active information processes are activated by the consumer. In case of minor decisions, choices are expected to be less reasoned. This characterization of consumer behavior leads to the construct of consumer
involvement (Zaichkowsky 1985). Zaichkowsky defines consumer
involvement as “a person's perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests”. Roughly, high involvement means high personal relevance and low involvement reflects low personal relevance. Involvement is considered as an individual difference variable. Therefore, depending on their level of involvement, consumers will differ greatly in the extensiveness of their purchase decision process (Laurent and Kapferer 1985), consequense of this will be outlined later on in this paragraph.
Capella (2006) suggest: service providers should measure the product category involvement of their clientele in order to determine which customers are interesting to target with, for example, relational marketing programs. Kavadas, Katsanis and LeBel (2007) propose taking a representative sample of the target group. By measuring the audience’s involvement an appropriate way of targeting can be determined. Evidence of the importance of involvement in relationship marketing is also provided by Varki and Wong (2003) who found that involvement moderates the effect of relationship investments by service providers on the quality of service provider-customer relationships.
In short, consumer involvement has three major antecedents: the characteristics of the person, the characteristics of the stimulus, the characteristics of the situation. One or more of these factors could affect the extent of involvement. As mentioned before, the importance of the involvement construct lies in the way that it influences consumer behavior (Zaichkowsky 1994). This can be situated in all kinds of applications: involvement with advertisements (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983), involvement with products (Quester and Smart 1998) and involvement with purchase decisions (Mittal 1989). One example of an effect of consumer involvement on consumer behavior is that in case of low involvement simple peripheral cues (i.e. brand names) can foster a positive product attitude, whereas under the condition of high involvement argument quality (i.e. product relevant information) is an important requirement for positive product assessments (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983).
a positive product attitude, whereas under the condition of high product involvement argument quality (i.e. product relevant information) is an important requirement for positive product assessments (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983). Empirical results by Prenshaw, Kovar and Burke (2006) confirm these theoretical presumptions. They conclude that in order to boost customer satisfaction (an important input for customer loyalty) performance outcomes are highly relevant for high-involvement individuals, and focus on emotional appeals, and sensory aspects of the service for low-involvement individuals. They also derived their hypotheses from the principles of the elaboration likelihood model.
At the same time the relationship related driver might be more important in high product involvement decisions than in low product involvement decisions. High involvement decisions are characterized by a certain degree of emotional or financial risk (Laurent and Kapferer 1985; Percy and Elliott 2005). Service industries with high perceived risk have more opportunities to build customer relationships. Bendapudi and Berry (1997) note that relationships can exist because consumers want to (“dedication-based” relationships) or because consumers feel they have to maintain the relationship because of high switching cost or lack of choice (“constraint-based relationship”). Employing Bendapudi and Berry’s terminology, Varki and Wong (2003) propose that the dedication and constraint variables will be higher for high involved consumers. Moreover, the higher personal relevance of high involvement situations causes that high involved consumers are more likely to involve in benefit types related to:
interest in engaging in relationships with service providers than low involved customers.
In conclusion, it seems that the value equity and relationship equity component should be more important for high involved consumers than for low involved consumers when viewing consumer behavior. In addition, in cases of decision making characterized by low consumer involvement brand equity should be more important compared to decision under high consumer involvement. When translating to customer loyalty and its drivers, these same propositions could be assumed. Brand equity items (such as brand image) should have a stronger influence on loyalty in the case of low consumer involvement situations compared to high involvement situations. Moreover, value equity items (such as product quality) and relationship equity items (i.e. trust) will have a stronger influence on customer loyalty in high involvement situations. This results in the following hypotheses:
H 4: The loyalty driver "value equity” is more important in high consumer involvement situations than in low consumer involvement situations.
H5: The loyalty driver "relationship equity” is more important in high consumer involvement situations than in low consumer involvement situations.
H6: The loyalty driver "brand equity” is more important in low consumer involvement situations than in high consumer involvement situations.
3. Conceptual model
This conceptual model shows that the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers is dependent on the type of service and the consumer’s involvement.
The type of service is subdivided in search and credence services (Nelson 1970; Darby and Karni 1973). As shown in figure 1, search and credence services are most opposed to each other. This is caused by different degrees in “tangibility” of these services. Search services possess highly tangible features while credence services do not have a tangible nature.
The relationship between the different services and the customer loyalty drivers is already outlined. In short, the relationship equity loyalty driver and the brand equity loyalty driver should be more important in credence services than in search services. In situations of search services the value equity loyalty driver will be more important (Zeithaml 1981; Alford and Sherrell 1996; Brady 2001; Krishnan and Hartline 2001; Bolton, Lemon, and Verhoef 2004; Eisingerich and Bell 2007). These assumptions will be most obvious for search versus credence services, therefore these services are inlcluded in this research.
Figure 2: Conceptual model
4. Research design
4.1 Research model and analyzing method
The previously described hypotheses will be investigated with an empirical study. This means that the empirical study should measure if there are differences in the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers among different kinds of services (search versus credence) and the degree of consumer involvement (low versus high).
RE = relationship equity BE = brand equity
The hypotheses suggest that the relationship between loyalty intention and its drivers depends on a third variable, these variables are the type of service and the degree of consumer involvement. This assumed effect is known as the moderator effect. A moderating effect occurs when the direct relationship between two variables is contingent on the value of a third, moderator, variable. To be more specific, moderation means that one variable (i.e., z) effects the relationship between two other variables (i.e.., x and y) as a function of the value of z. This way of regression analysis is often defined as moderated multiple regression (Aguinis, Sturman, and Pierce 2008).
The moderators can be statistically characterized as interactions (Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken 2003). These interactions are measured by a cross-product of the moderator variable and the predictor variable (Stone and Holenbeck 1984). The focus is on the regression coefficient (β) of the cross-product of the predictor variable and the moderator variable because this value captures the moderator effect.
The present study will use categorical moderator variables due to the scaling method used in the questionnaire. A large number of primary-level studies across subdisciplines in the behavioral and social sciences have included tests with categorical moderator variables, variables with discrete values, as well (Aguinis, Sturman, and Pierce 2008). Moderated multiple regression allows the categorical moderator to take on any number of levels (Aguinis, Beaty, Boik, and Pierce 2005).
When translating the above information to the current study, it can be concluded that consumer involvement and type of service will operate as the (categorical) moderators. The resulting moderated multiple regression model is as follows:
LI= β0 + β1×Inv + β2×Ts + β3×VE + β4×RE + β5×BE + β6×(Inv×VE) + β7×(Inv×RE) + β8×(Inv×BE) + β9×(Ts×VE) + β10×(Ts×RE) +
where
LI = loyalty intention
Inv = Consumer involvement
Ts = Type of service (search or credence) VE = Value equity
RE = Relationship equity BE = Brand equity
The rewritten models suggests that the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers is contingent on the situation characterized by the type of service and the degree of consumer involvement.
The regression coefficients will be estimated by using linear regression. Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) note that nonlinear regressions between the three equity drivers and loyalty intentions does not significantly improve the model fit or the explanatory power of the model. This implies that the previously outlined model can be regarded and applied as a linear model.
service goes from 0 (credence) to 1 (search). Ultimately, the value of the moderator coefficient shows to what extent loyalty intention will increase by a certain change in the moderator.
Besides this way of analysing the moderator coefficient, it is also relevant to test the statistically significant effect for the moderator term. In order to be able to reject the null hypothesis that the moderator effect is 0, the P-value of this effect becomes very important when testing if it can be accepted that there is actually a moderator effect (Stone and Holenbeck 1984; Aguinis, Beaty, Boik, and Pierce 2005).
4.2. Research procedure
To be able to test the assumed effects implied in the hypotheses, regarding the effect of the different types of service, a credence service will be compared with a search service. This due to the fact that these type of services are most opposed to each other when considering their service characteristics concerning the “tangibility” paradigm. A checking account might be a good example of a search service. Mitra, Reiss, and Capella (1999) state that a checking account is classified as a search service because consumers would be aware of and can evaluate the attributes of a checking account such as costs, ease of use, interest rates and overdraft fees before opening an account. As mentioned earlier in the present study, a proper example of a credence service could be health insurances due to the characteristic that product benefits are difficult to prove (Durvasula et al. 2004). Foxall and Pallister (1998) support this by noting that financial services like insurances bear benefit sometime in the future. Furthermore, for practical reasons (due to the data collection method) the cases of evaluating a checking account and health insurances seems to be appropriate for this research. A high amount of people will have experiences with these kinds of services. Therefore, to generate a substantial amount of respondents, these service examples will be useful to apply.
testing may present problems related to construct validity (Mitra, Reiss, and Capella 1999). Construct validity deals with the issue whether the results of the research are really a reliable indication for the subject that has to be measured. In other words, what is the degree of correspondence between the construct and its measures (Peter 1981). To eliminate this validity problem, an empirical pre-test is undertaken, this test is considered in the next paragraph .
In order to test the effect of consumer involvement on the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers, consumer involvement is a moderator variable in this study as well. The involvement of a consumer with a certain service is for a great part dependent on the individual (Kinard and Capella 2006). Therefore, the degree of involvement of specific consumers should be defined. The involvement of the respondents in this research can be measured by applying an involvement scale.
emotional appeal, its ability to provide pleasure and affect. These facets all have their own influence on consumer behavior. Their scale states that one could not capture the consumer's involvement through a single index. All facets of the involvement profile must be taken into account together because some facets cause some specific behavior.
When the scales of Zaichkowsky and Laurent and Pfaffer are compared with each other it could be drawn that a great overlap exists. Therefore, there is no great gap with respect to the content of both scales. However, in the present research consumer involvement will be measured by a single index (corresponding to the method of Zaichkowsky 1985; 1994) in order to be able to measure its influence on customer loyalty and its drivers.
Kinard and Capella (2006) applied a derivative of the Zaichkowsky scale in the context of relationship marketing. This scale measures the consumer’s involvement of the product/service of consideration by the following eight items: necessary, essentiality, importance, concern, relevance, value, significance and substance. This scale showed a high reliability and will be used in this research as well.
In order to be sure that for the present cases (health insurance and checking account) enough variation in consumer involvement exists a pre-test is executed. This test will be discussed in the next paragraph.
Summarising, in the present research, a moderated regression model will be constructed. This model measures the effects of consumer involvement and the type of service on the relationship between the predictor variables (value equity, relationship equity, and brand equity) and loyalty intention: However, first some pre-tests have to be executed in order to measure the applicability of the current research method.
4.2.1 Pre-test
Respondents are asked to classify the two examples of services (checking account and health insurance) into one of the two previously identified groups. The two groups correspond to a search service on the one hand, and a credence service on the other hand.
The testing procedure of the pre-test is derived from Mitra, Reiss, and Capella (1999). They also dealt with using proper examples of services in order to apply the right services that reflect the classification scheme of search-, experience-, and credence service. The pre-test method copied from Mitra, Reiss, and Capella is as follows. They provide respondents with three different statements. Each statement reflects one type of service, the respondents have to rate several examples of services on basis of these statements. This evaluation procedure is performed on a 7-points Likert scale (1=totally disagree, 7=totally agree). The current research will apply a two-item (search versus credence service) seven-point scale derived from the theoretical definitions of these service types (Nelson, 1970; Darbi and Karni, 1973). Paired sample t-tests are applied in order to measure differences for the “test” services on the two statements, corresponding to a search service on the one hand and a credence service on the other hand. The statements are as follows:
1) I could confidently judge how “good” or “bad” the quality is before acquiring the service.
2) I could not confidently judge how “good” or “bad” the quality is shortly after acquiring the service.
Table 1: pre- test scores.
Evaluating a health insurance (n=40)
Evaluating a checking account (n=40)
Mean score on statement 1 3 4,55 Mean score on statement 2 4,7 3,325 T-value
P-value from the paired t-test
-3,848 0,000
2,538 0,014
From the above table it can be drawn that the respondents classify the selected services in the same way as was presumed by literature. Paired sample t-tests show that the paired variables (the scores on statement 1 and statement 2) differ significantly from each other for both two cases. This implies that respondents consider a checking account as a search service and a health insurance as a credence service.
Participants of the pre-test also answered questions relating to consumer involvement. The consumer’s involvement is tested with the eight items (semantic differential) scale of Kinard and Capella (2006). It appears that for both type of services variation exists in involvement scores. However, this variation is larger in the case of a checking account. The pre-test shows that the consumer involvement for a checking account ranged from 3,625 tot 6,75. The median is 5,5625, and the average is 5,425. In case of a health insurance consumer involvement scores vary from 4,625 to 7. The median is 6,125, and the avarage 6,016.
4.3. Survey measures The survey list starts with items measuring consumer involvement levels with
the respective service category. Subsequently, a question to write down the name of a specific provider within the service category (checking account, health insurance), with whom the respondent currently has established a relationship, follows. This procedure is similar to Kinard and Cappela (2006). Each respondent is then asked to answer questions related to the equity drivers and loyalty intentions for the specific service provider.
and its drivers. The items in this scale are developed from literature and they are elaborately pre-tested by Vogel Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan in order to come to a final survey instrument. Multi-item seven-point Likert scales are used in order to anchor the answers.
Consumer involvement is defined as a person's perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests (Zaichkowsky 1985). The consumer’s involvement is measured by applying the earlier mentioned scale of Kinard and Capella (2006). This scale consists of eight (seven-point semantic differential) items, and it assigns an involvement score to the respondents. The eight items measuring consumer involvement have to be summed and averaged to form a composite score for each respondent. In general, value equity is the objective assessment of the utility of a product or service (Ostrom, Amy and Iacobucci 1995; Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). However, Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) measure the value equity driver for a retail outlet by using six items. These items reflect the customer’s evaluations of functional and cognitive value associated with the retail outlet. They note that perceived value in general has to be measured, and it should reflect perceptions of the customer about what is given up for what is received. This results in items as: price, product quality, service quality, and convenience. However, a distinction between service- and product quality, as the do-it-yourself retailer, is not the case when considering a checking account or health insurances. When speaking in terms of Bebko (2000) and Brady and Cronin (2001) a checking account and health insurances are a service outcome and not a service outcome/product bundle. Therefore, besides the items price and convenience, the present research only considers service outcome quality as a scale item.
Ramaseshan (2008) are still useful because they reflect the relationship equity items in an appropriate way. These items are: preferential treatment received from the provider, familiarity with and trust in the brand, and experiences with other customers.
Brand equity measures the subjective, emotional and intangible assessment of a brand, this construct reflects the overall perception of the brand image. Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) measure brand equity by using four items. These items are: favorability, strongness, uniqueness, and likeability of the brand image. These items can be applied in the same way, instead of the do/it/yourself retailer brand this study considers the checking acount provider brand and the health insurance provider brand.
Finally, loyalty intentions (conative loyalty) are defined as customers’ behavioral intentions to continue buying a product/service from a specific brand in the future, accompanied by a deeply held commitment to that brand. This construct is measured by two items: the chance that somebody would repurchase the brand, and the chance that somebody would recommend the brand to a friend, family, acquaintances etc. Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) derived these items from Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman’s (1996).
Table 2: constructs and survey items.
Construct Definition Survey items
Value equity
The objective assessment of the utility of a product or service (Ostrom, Amy and Iacobucci 1995; Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008).
Overall Experience, price-quality ratio of the product/service;
Convenience of obtaining the product/service (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008). Relationship equity The tendency of customers
to stay in a relationship with the brand, beyond objective and subjective assessments of the brand (Vogel,
Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008).
Preferential treatment received from the provider; Familiarity with and trust in the brand; Experiences with other customers (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008).
Brand equity The differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand (Keller 1993).
The subjective, emotional and intangible assessment of a brand, this construct reflects the overall perception of the brand image (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008).
Favorability, strongess, uniqueness and likeability of the brand image (Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008).
Loyalty intentions (conative loyalty)
Customers’ behavioral intentions to continue buying a product/service from a specific brand in the future, accompanied by a deeply held commitment to that brand (Vogel,
Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan 2008).
The chance that somebody would repurchase the brand; The chance that somebody would recommend the brand to a friend (Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman 1996).
Consumer involvement A person's perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests (Zaichkowsky 1985).
Necessary, essentiality, importance, concern,
relevance, value, significance and substance of the
4.4. Data Collection and Sample
The data will be collected by using an online questionnaire. The choice for using an online questionnaire has certain advantages. According to Malhotra (2007), the internet is a good medium to acquire the needed information fast and flexible. Besides this, the speed with which the results can be processed, and the transparency, is a great advantage. From the respondents’ point of view, main advantages are: he/she can decide when taking part in the research and online research is experienced as convenient and user-friendly. The questionnaires will be distributed to Dutch citizens. A great part of the Dutch population (above 21 years) will have experiences with a checking account and/or health insurances because a (basic) health insurance is obliged in the Netherlands and checking accounts are very common as well. A sample will be drawn and they are sent an e-mail in which their participation is asked in order to fill in the questionnaire. In the cover mail it is stated that the people need to have experiences with these two kinds of services, otherwise the questionnaire is not relevant for them.
The way people are being recruited for this survey can be described as a mix of judgmental sampling and snowball sampling. Malhotra (2007) states that judgmental sampling is an approach of convenience sampling in which the population elements are selected based on the judgment of the researcher. Elements that are taken into account for this research is firstly the limit of age (21 years and older) and then the spread in age, household size and education. In addition this study makes use of snowball sampling. In this method an initial group is selected (by applying judgmental sampling). After being invited this group is asked to identify others who belong to the target group (people above 21 years who have experiences with a checking account and a health insurance).
5. Results
5.1. Representativeness of sample
In order to infer that the collected data is an representative group of the consumer population the consumer population must be described firstly. The consumer population could be described, as outlined earlier, as all Dutch citizens above 21 years who have experiences with a checking account and/or health insurances. Figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (2008) will be used to judge the representativeness of the sample.
The survey obtained 150 respondents. 22 survey lists were filled in wrongly. This means that one or more questions regarding the survey items were not filled in. All these cases are deleted in order to come to a final sample of 128 useful respondents.
The sample consists of 80 men (62%) and 48 women (38%). Figures from CBS (2008) indicate that the Dutch population comprises 49% men 51% women. However, it is reasonable to assume that in families men are more often the decision maker in acquiring health insurances. This assumption is supported by research of Verhage, Greene and Chandon (1983), they conclude that men are mainly the decider in acquiring insurances. This finding justifies the high amount of men who returned the survey.
The average age of the sample is 38.12. A minimum age of 21 and a maximum age of 76, with a standard deviation of 15.1, suggest that the sample has a proper spread of age. The observed household size and the figures concerning Dutch household size from CBS (2008) correspond to each other. Namely, in the present research the average household size is 2,70 (CBS notes a householdsize of 2,24).
relating to the external validity and generalizability of results due to the non-representativeness and specific elements of this subgroup (e.g., Burnett and Dunne, 1986). However, Krishnan and Hartline (2001) state that students are viable consumers and useful for examining several concepts such as brand equity and are still extensively used by marketing researchers (Kim andSung, 2009; Watchravesringkan, Ruoh-Nan and Yurchisin, 2008; Kwon, Lee and Kwon, 2008; Kavadas, Katsanis and LeBel 2007). Applying this knowledge it can be concluded that the present sample possesses a reasonable representativeness. The sample characteristics are summarised in table 5.
Table 3: descriptive data about the sample
Descriptive Minimum Maximum Mean Std. deviation Age 21 76 38,12 15,09
Household size
1 6 2,70 1,50
Education VBO/VMBO WO HBO 1,51 Gender: 62% men, 38% women
5.2. Measuring items and internal reliability
that the used scale is intern reliable. The Cronbach’s alpha’s of the several constructs for the health insurance situation and the checking account situation are listed below subsequently. The SPSS output concerning the tests of Cronbach’s alpha is included in Appendix 3.
Table 4: Cronbach’s alpha’s health insurance and checking account situation Construct Items Cronbach’s alpha
health insurance Cronbach’s alpha checking account Consumer involvement Necessary,essentiality, importance, concern, relevance, value, significance and substance of the product/service 0,877 0,868
Value equity Overall Experience; Price-quality ratio of the product/service; Convenience of obtaining the product/service 0,860 0,794
Relationship equity Preferential treatment received from the provider;
Familiarity with and trust in the brand; Experiences with other customers
0,602 0,664
Brand equity Favorability,
strongess, uniqueness and likeability of the brand image
0,847 0,893
The results of the several Cronbach’s alpha’s give satisfying outcomes (>0.6). This implies that the different sorts of items measure the same objective and all can be used in the analysis for measuring the specific constructs.
5.3. Testing the simple regression model
and Ramaseshan (2008). Namely, the three customer equity drivers positively influence customers’ loyalty intentions towards a firm. Moreover, among the three drivers, value equity is of primary importance in establishing customer loyalty. Finally, the proportion of variance (R-square) in the dependent variable which can be explained by the independent variables is also similar. The current regression model of the three customer loyalty drivers results in a R-square of 0,400, while the model of Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) notes a R-square of 0,4469.
5.4. Results of hypotheses
The hypotheses will be tested in this paragraph, based on the answers of the 128 respondents who filled in complete survey lists. This analytical part is accomplished by using statistical analysis (SPSS).
In order to test the several hypotheses a moderated regression model (see paragraph 4.1) is composed to measure the effect of consumer involvement and type of service on the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers. These regression coefficients are acquired by making use of linear regression in SPSS. The regression coefficients of the simple loyalty drivers and the moderators, with loyalty intention as dependent variable, are as follows (appendix 5 provides the original output generated by SPSS):
These results will be discussed along the several hypotheses, starting with the hypotheses concerning the type of service (credence/search) and its influence on customer loyalty and its drivers.
The hypotheses are:
H1: The loyalty driver “relationship equity” is more important for credence services than for search services.
H2: The loyalty driver "value equity” is more important for search services than for credence services.
H3: The loyalty driver "brand equity” is more important for credence services than for search services.
When looking at the Beta’s and their P-values of the moderators concerning the type of service it can be concluded that there is no evidence that supports the several hypotheses. For H1 a negative coefficient of the interaction “type of service* relationship equity” is expected. Namely, it is assumed that the effect of the predictor variable (relationship equity) on the dependent variable (loyalty intention) decreases as the moderator (type of service) goes from 0 (credence) to 1 (search). Though the negative coefficient (-0,983) of the “type of service*relationship equity” interaction effect supports this assumption, the P-value (0,728) shows that this effect is not significant. H2 en H3 are neither supported. In contrary to what was expected the Beta of the interaction “type of service*value equity” is negative, while the Beta of the interaction “type of service*brand equity is positive.
The hypotheses concerning the influence of consumer involvement on the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers are investigated by measuring effects concerning interactions between consumer involvement and the loyalty drivers. The hypotheses are as follow:
H5: The loyalty driver "relationship equity” is more important in high consumer involvement situations than in low consumer involvement situations.
H6: The loyalty driver "brand equity” is more important in low consumer involvement situations than in high consumer involvement situations.
The results, included in table 5, reveal that H4 is supported: the Beta of the interaction term “consumer involvement*value eyuity” is positive (3,499) and has a significant P-value (O,016). This means that the higher the consumer’s involvement the greater the effect of value equity on loyalty intention will be. As assumed beforehand, the coefficient of “consumer involvement*brand equity” is negative (-2,080). Namely, it is assumed that the effect of the predictor variable (brand equity) on the dependent variable (loyalty intention) decreases as the moderator (consumer involvement) goes from low to high. However, H6 cannot be supported due to the P-value of 0,127 (>0,05). Finally, H5 is not supported as well. A positive coefficient of the interaction “consumer involvemen*relationship equity” is expected. However, results indicate a negative coefficient of this interaction.
6. Conclusions and recommendations 6.1. Discussion
Firstly, conclusions relating to the type of service and the relationship between customer loyalty and its drivers will be discussed. Subsequently, this will be done for the hypotheses concerning consumer involvement as well. This paragraph wil be concluded with implications of the results for researchers and practitioners.
financial crisis. Due to the problems most of the financial institutions have these days it might be plausible to assume that, especially banks, encounter issues with their clientele’s trust. A publication of branding bureau HIGHvalue (2009) supports this notion1. The research of HIGHvalue measures the
Financial Trust Index among banks and concludes that the consumer’s trust in banks is highly diminished during the first quarter of 2009. Moreover, there are large differences between several banks: some banks still score quite good while others score very bad. Therefore, it seems reasonable that there is a greater variation in consumer trust, with respect to banks, nowadays than usual. For this reason it could be that relationship equity, especially the trust item, has a larger impact on loyalty intention than commonly in the case of financial institutions. Empirical results support this assumption. Namely, a regression analysis of loyalty intention and the several relationship equity items shows that trust has, by far, the greatest impact on loyalty intention compared to the other relational items (see appendix 6). Therefore, the findings of this research regarding the relationship equity loyalty driver, in the case of a checking account, might be biased.
The hypothesis regarding the higher importance of the brand equity loyalty driver in the credence service situation is not supported by the empirical results as well. The coefficient of the interaction “type of service*brand equity” is positive instead of negative. This means that the brand equity loyalty driver is actually more important in a search service situation than in a credence search situation. The assumption was based on theoretical presumptions that the brand equity loyalty driver is more important for credence-dominant services than either experience-dominant or search dominant resulting from the “tangibility” paradigm. However, the present finding regarding the importance of the brand equity loyalty driver in the two different service types is consistent with an earlier empirical result from Krishnan and Hartline (2001). They found that brand equity, in general, is
1
The referred publication concerns the Financial Trust Index published 12 march 2009 in “De Telegraaf” available at:
more important in search services than in credence services while, according to them, theory assumes this differently. Their result, combined with the current finding, shows that there seems to be a gap between theoretical presumptions and empirical findings. Important is to explore the underlying explanation for this inconsistency between theory and practice. However, this is beyond the scope of this research but it could be an interesting subject for further researchers.
The hypothesis concerning the value equity loyalty driver and the type of service is neither supported by the empirical data since the regression coefficient of the interaction “type of service*value equity” is negative while a positive sign is expected. Literature presumed that the value equity loyalty driver might be more important in the case of a search service compared to a credence service. The current result might be interrelated with the finding regarding the brand equity loyalty driver. More concretely, the trend observable in this research is that the brand equity loyalty driver is more important in the search service situation while the value equity loyalty driver is more important in the credence service situation. However, despite of other research (Krishnan and Hartline 2001) that supports this finding there is no theoretical explanation for this yet.
important requirement for positive product assessments (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983).
The hypothesis concerning the brand equity driver is based on this theory as well. Indeed, the results show that the coefficient of the interaction “consumer involvement*brand equity is negative” (-2,080). However, the P-value of 0,127 shows that this effect is not significant. Therefore, the underpinnings of the elaboration likelihood model seem to work only partially in this study.
6.2. Implications
There are some marketing specific implications resulting from the present study and its findings. First, in order to maintain customers loyal a contingency approach seems to be applicable. In general, value equity, brand equity and relationship equity are important constructs that drive customer loyalty. However, this research shows that the importance of the three customer loyalty drivers is situation specific (type of service/degree of consumer involvement). Thus, to invest efficiently in marketing deliberate choices considering these constructs has to be made. As mentioned earlier, top managers are continuously faced with the problem of how to trade of competing marketing activities. Frequently, these managers have little data to base their decision on (Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml 2004). The outcomes of this research partially contribute in enabling companies to tackle the dilemma of what kind of investments should be made in order to drive customer loyalty. When considering these findings firms can classify itself around the type of service it provides and profiling the involvement of its consumers. Subsequently, managers will be able to determine which factors are important in order to boost customer loyalty and future sales.
To be more specific, when viewing the results of this study it can be concluded that the variable consumer involvement moderates the impact of the loyalty drivers, especially value equity. The implications of the elaboration likelihood model seems to be applicable in this situation. Namely, the value equity loyalty driver is more important for high involved consumers compared to low involved consumers. This finding implies that in order to make high involved consumer more loyal firms should pay a great attention to items as: price, quality and convenience. In addition, aspects as the strongness, uniqueness, favorability and desirability of the brand image seems to be more important in driving customer loyalty of low involved consumers. However, the P-value of 0,127 causes that this finding cannot be accepted formally.
segmentation. Results from various studies clearly indicate the need for a targeted approach to their consumer markets by segmenting consumers on the basis of their involvement (Quester and Smart 1998; Kavadas, Katsanis and LeBel 2007). As Kinard and Capella (2006) suggest: service providers should measure the product category involvement of their clientele in order to determine which customers are interesting to target with, for example, relational marketing programs. Kavadas, Katsanis and LeBel (2007) propose taking a representative sample of the target group. By measuring the audience’s involvement an appropriate way of targeting can be determined. The present research suggests that it is important to target high involved consumers with arguments about price, quality and convenience in order to boost customer loyalty.
Additionally, in the case of a search service, this study and the study of Krishnan and Hartline (2001), conclude that brand equity has a high influence on customer loyalty. This would mean that aspects as the strongness, uniqueness, favorability and desirability of the brand image are important in driving customer loyalty in a search service situation. However, there is a lack of theoretical foundations that support these findings though these findings were substantial. Therefore, it might be interesting and relevant for further researchers to seek for underlying reasons for this pattern. Due to this shortage of a theoretical explanation cautiosness is important when interpreting the empirical results of these studies concerning the brand equity loyalty driver.
4.3. Limitations and directions for further research
