Title: Customer loyalty card programmes and its interaction with support technology in the retail industry

Authors: Alan D. Smith

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3099, USA

Abstract: This paper will explore customer loyalty cards and significance to technology and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), as well as privacy and security issues, customer loyalty, competitive advantages for retailers and consumer, reward programmes, and education on the programmes. Two surveys, a pilot study of 50 and a more comprehensive survey of 257 college-educated, professional individuals from the Pittsburgh SMSA, were conducted to determine it retail establishments that use customer loyalty card programmes, such as a frequent shopper card and customer support technology, namely self-serve checkouts have better retention rates and higher customer loyalty. Factor analysis, multiple regression and principle components were the major statistical techniques used, resulting in six factor-based scores constructs with significant combined variance (cumulative variance of 60.354%). Hypotheses-testing predicting total money spent and specific recommendations are included.

Keywords: customer relationship management; CRM; customer loyalty; e-commerce; e-personalisation; empirical study; retail industry; self-service checkouts; strategy; systems research; electronic commerce; loyalty cards; privacy; security; reward programmes; competitive advantages.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMED.2008.016971

International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, 2008 Vol.5 No.2, pp.157 - 195

Published online: 02 Feb 2008 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article