The moderating impact of emotions on customer equity drivers and loyalty intentions: Evidence of within sector differences

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigates the significant contribution of emotions along with other conventional loyalty drivers on the loyalty intentions

Methodology: The influence of three conventional loyalty drivers, i.e. Value equity, Brand equity, Relationship equity on loyalty intentions was investigated by further exploring the moderating effects of negative and positive emotions. A sample of 834 Pakistani consumers in the supermarkets and banking industries were studied employing store-intercept survey design.

Findings: Consumer behavior is driven by emotions in both the supermarkets and banking context. Thus, in order to better predict customer loyalty intentions, the emotional component is crucial and should be included along with other cognitive components.

Practical Implications: Since customers’ emotional responses throughout service delivery are strongly linked to loyalty, therefore supermarkets and bank service managers need to make sure that the customers experience with their services as pleasurable as possible and for this purpose, customer service employees need to be trained in order to better understand the customers’ emotional responses during the course of service delivery process.

Originality: The present study complements the existing literature regarding the role of emotions in service settings and offers a new point of view for the linkage among emotions, customer equity drivers and customer loyalty intentions.