Assessing the effectiveness of loyalty programs in building customer engagement and loyalty

Abstract

There is no doubt that loyalty programs are still popular. But are they still effective? Marketers continue to put more and more time and money into their programs, but are they getting the kind of payoffs they expect in customer engagement and loyalty? Taking this issue as a starting point, this doctoral dissertation assesses the effectiveness of loyalty programs in building customer engagement and loyalty across three essays. Specifically, in the first essay a valid scale for customer engagement with loyalty programs is developed and its link with company engagement is assessed. The second essay identifies what reward types and communication features should be used to make members more engaged with LPs. The third essay identifies the behavioural patterns and types of online communication that tend to make customers sustainably loyal towards a company rather than short-term program loyal.

Date of Award	18 Dec 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Namur
Sponsors	Université Catholique de Louvain
Supervisor	Pietro Zidda (Co-Supervisor), Valérie Swaen (Co-Supervisor), Marie-Paule Kestemont (President), Alain DECROP (Jury), Nathalie Demoulin (Jury) & Yuping Liu-Thompkins (Jury)