Examining and exploring the relationships between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

THIS study aims to analyze how consumer satisfaction leads to loyalty and ultimately maximization of the business profit. It has become relatively common for corporate houses to understand their customers’ behaviour in order to survive, grow and win this globally competitive market. A firm should be able to increase customer satisfaction by improving its product and servicequality, ultimately leading to better performance.

The data were collected from the students of the University at VBS Purvanchal University, Jaunpur (U.P.). More than 150 students of different Post Graduate and Under Graduate courses of the University were contacted for the purpose. The hypotheses developedon the findings of the past studies and literatures. Regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that the customer expectation, product performance and satisfaction are having a direct relationship with customer loyalty. Product performance and word of mouthcommunication behavior influences customer satisfaction and intention to reuse/repurchase the same product in future.

The data collected for the purpose is only from the University students as they are techno savvy and more friendly to use the new technology and prone to adopt it. The future study can investigate the customer shopping behavior and their future intention during their shopping, which may enhance the validity of the study.

The study concludes that the product attributes and services help to retain the customer. The continuous improvement in the quality of a product and services are required tosatisfy and retain a customer.

The research explores how consumer satisfaction leads customer loyalty and future intention, and empirically tests how product attributes influences the consumer satisfaction and future behavior.