Fidélité

American Journal of Applied Sciences 3 (4): 1814-1818, 2006 ISSN 1546-9239 © 2006 Science Publications

Service Loyalty Measurement Scale: A Reliability Assessment
J. Clement Sudhahar, 2Duraipandian Israel, 3A.Prabhu Britto and 4M.Selvam 1 School of Management, Karunya Deemed University, Coimbatore, India 2 XLRI, Jamshedpur, India 3 Center for Medical Electronics, Department of ECE, AnnaUniversity, Chennai, India 4 Department of Commerce, Bharathidasan University, Trichy, India Abstract: This research article demonstrates the application of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) in the scale development process of measuring the construct Service Loyalty (SERVLOYAL). The conceptualization of SERVLOYAL is presented, the dimensions forming the SERVLOYAL construct are figured out. Thenitty-gritty of CFA is discussed. And the results of CFA analysis for SERVLOYAL scale developed are found to be reliable. This empirical study provides a solid foundation for further research in CFA and SEM applications. Key words: Service loyalty, reliability, measurement scale INTRODUCTION The act of maintaining long-term relationship with customers has been proving to be beneficial for the corporateof any rung, be it profitability or loyalty, irrespective of the sectors they belong to. In today’s highly competitive environment, organizations should protect the long-term interest of the customers and hence should seek the ways through which the customer loyalty toward the organizations will be forged. Marketers opine that these long-term relationships with the customers would enhance theirprofitability[1-3], increased sales, lower costs and other tangible benefits[4]. The time has come for the firms to consider this customer loyalty as a source of competitive advantage[5]. It has been established that the customers will not be impressed by only the core product attributes as other firms are also providing similar offerings. The study of customer loyalty and business performance hasbeen a focus in the customer relationship management[6,7]. While the study on brand loyalty has been the topic of research in the past, numerous research articles appearing in journals betokening the development and conceptualization of the service loyalty models. More than a dozen of articles have been published on customer loyalty in retail banking market[8] alone as it has been recognized thatmany banks have introduced innovative products and service[9] and that it is less expensive to retain a customer than acquiring a new one. The longer the customer stays with an organisation, the more positive outcome he generates which include increase in the value of purchase, increase in the number of purchases and the customers’ better understanding of Organisational and vice-versa and morepositive wordof-mouth[10]. Service loyalty literature recap: Several contributions have been made in service marketing literature in measuring the service loyalty (SERVLOYAL). Significantly, factors such as service quality[11], service satisfaction[11,12], image[13,14], values[15], [16,17] [12] commitment and trust are identified to have an impact on SERVLOYAL. Since service is peculiar that involvespersonal encounter and also has a bit of perceived risk in the consumption of the same[18,19] the measurement of loyalty has become a subject for discussion from a radically different perspective from that of a product loyalty. The term loyalty has been defined as a degree of continuity in patronage[9], customers’ disposition in terms of preferences and intentions[20] and a psychological processresulting in brand commitment[21]. Further, different measures of service loyalty have been utilized in different industries. While more number of articles on the measurement of SERVLOYAL is in extant for a retail banking service than for any other service sector, it was construed imperative by the authors to develop an allencompassing measurement for SERVLOYAL in utilizing the various ingredients…