Customer Loyalty to the Salesperson and the Store: Examining Relationship Customers in an Upscale Retail Context |
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| Authors: | Kristy E. Reynolds Mark J. Arnold |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Kristy E. Reynolds (Ph.D., University of Alabama) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Central Florida. Her most recent work appears in the Journal of Retailing and is forthcoming in the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Retailing. Her research interests include customer-salesperson relationships, consumer-brand relationships, shopping motivations, hedonic shopping experiences, shopping and patronage behavior, impulse buying, scale development and measurement, survey research, and qualitative research.;2. Mark J. Arnold (Ph.D., the St. Louis University) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Central Florida. His recent work appears or is forthcoming in the Journal of Macromarketing, the Journal of Marketing Education, and the Journal of Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior. His research interests include customer satisfaction and loyalty, direct marketing, marketing and consumption of high technology products, and marketing strategy. |
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| Abstract: | Only recently has research interest in relationship marketing and customer loyalty converged in the retail context. Although this research shows that relationship customers maintain their primary loyalty to the salesperson, which then “spills over” and affects loyalty to the store, other research suggests that salesperson loyalty has direct effects on store-level outcomes, such as spending and word of mouth. However, this has not been comprehensively investigated, and relationship researchers have specifically called for research examining the effects of salesperson and store loyalty on store-level outcomes. Our research addresses this call, and shows that in an upscale retail context a relationship customer's loyalty to the salesperson is significantly related to store loyalty as well as the important store-level outcomes of share of purchases, word of mouth and competitive resistance. |
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