Customer Loyalty

Nowadays, competition between companies is more vigorous and it is not easy for a company to keep a customer. In certain circumstances, customers are the key factors to any business. Many companies have used different methods to develop relationships with their customers. According to   Rigby and Ledingham (2004), senior executives have become considerably more enthusiastic about Customer Loyalty. It has gained popularity in many industries and become more important. It is definitely not a new approach for business. However, the world keeps changing and technology keeps developing. Therefore, in order to maintain business volume, companies need to keep pace with the new movement in order to survive in the competitive world.

Food and Beverage is a competitive industry and the basis of competition changes as well,   Piccoli, O’Connor, Capaccioli and Alvarez, (2003). In the old days, restaurants might attract and retain customers by promoting their food and beverage. However, those tangibles have become increasingly standardized across various brands. As a result, guests are fewer brands loyal, thus, how to maintain the loyalty of customers could be an attractive way for restaurants to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

As we all know, food and beverage is an industry providing mainly service, so strong customer relationship is particularly important. It is different from other industries like manufacturing industry that focuses on final product mainly. Intangibility is one of the characteristics of service industry, there is no tangible products kept in customers except experience after receiving service. Thus, it is difficult to judge whether a service is good or not. Even further, it is not easy for a restaurant to keep customers because of the nature of perishable service. Maintain customer loyalty could help a company understand more about their customers or solving known problem, which in turn assists the company to improve their service....