Will Boots benefit from Treat Street or will it have a negative impact on the perception of their loyalty card - Dissertation Example

?Will Boots benefit from Treat Street or will it have a negative impact on the perception of their loyalty card? Table of Contents Will Boots benefitfrom Treat Street or will it have a negative impact on the perception of their loyalty card? 1 1 Table of Contents 2 Introduction 2 About the Company 3 Research Aim/Problem 4 Research Objectives 5 Research Area 6 Rationale of research 7 Literature Review 7 Research Methodology 13 Data Collection Methods 13 Research Design 14 Data Collection Method and Research Instrument 16 Sampling Process 18 Method of Analysis 19 Limitations 19 Scope of Further Study 20 References 21 Annexure 23 Annexure 1: Questionnaire for Primary Research 23 Introduction The total sales as estimated in 2008 in the Health and Beauty sector worth 17.7 billion pounds out of which 36 % of the total was accounted for Boots. Boots being the largest single retailer in the cosmetic and health care division leads the market with innovative activities attracts the customers. In spite of being the leader in the sector Boots also was hit very badly during the period of recession. Due to the economic slowdown in the late 2008 consumers also became very price sensitive in the market. Along with this problem the competitive environment also forced the market leader Boots to rethink on its sales strategies and the discount and promotional campaigns to gain market share. For this reason the company implemented several strategies likes giving discounts and scheme cards to attract customers. Review showed that about 16% of the customers bought more and increased the sales during discount period. Loyalty Cards are introduced by Boots to encourage consumers to avail discounted price and thus become a more loyal customer to the brand. With the change in society and consumers buying habit Boots introduced a more Advantage Card ‘Treat Street’ which gives the existing customer some extra benefits. This research is done in order to find whether Boots benefit from this Advanced Card or it has a negative impact on the perception of their loyalty card holders. About the Company Boots group, PLC is the leading beauty and health care retailer and one of the best known companies at United Kingdom. Boots is one of the members of Alliance Boots which is one of the leading international pharmacy-led health care and beauty group. Boots was established in the year 2006 when The Boots Company PLC was merged with the Alliance Unichem. As of 2010, the company operates in over 20 countries and is sold in over 130 countries around the world leads the market with about 3250 outlets at different locations. Though the company operates in pharmacy and cosmetic/toiletries but it is not known as the specialist in that section only, rather it is popularly classified as a mixed good retailer. With the growing trend towards self-medication the sales of Boots is mainly concentrated to three main products categories i.e. analgesics like Nurofen, Strepsils for cough and cold remedies and also skin care products like Clearasil. Though the company dominates in their own industry segment but they faced a lot of difficulties to grab the market share. As of 2008 the market share of Boots was about 35.9% of the total market. The main problems behind this difficulty are especially building by the competitive brands mainly the supermarkets with toiletries segment. Customers always prefer to have a single point to purchase all there needed products rather than going to different stores and buy different products of their need. This is the main reason for the huge development of the shopping malls and super markets. Though these supermarkets don’t have much variety in products but they attract the customers with good amount of discounts and offers. Along with this due to economic recession in late 2008 the health and beauty sector was very badly hit which affected the purchasing power of the customers also. Thus to gain market share Boots worked out on their sales strategies thoroughly and introduced several discount schemes (Brandy, 2010, p.53). Research Aim/Problem During the period of economic slowdown many companies implemented several strategies to gain market share. To cope with the competitive situation Boots also introduced several schemes to attract customers. Boots thus invested a huge amount in promotion and marketing activities. The most important instrument for Boots is the loyalty card “Advantage Card” which counts around 17 million holders around the world. These advantage cards give several discounts to the customer from purchase points which drive more customers to buy new products for its utilization. Recently the Advantage Card benefit from Boots was upgraded to a new level with its launch of Treat Street. With the earlier loyalty cards the points can be collected only from their own outlets but with this advanced cards Boots incorporated many more third party counters from where the points can be collected. But on the other hand many companies are using the same strategy to gain market share thus the customer have many cards from different outlets. Boots with its new introduction scheme mainly targets to maintain its relationship with the existing customers rather than increasing the count of new customers. Customers with different types of cards often face problems to manage all the cards and utilize them properly. Thus they often lose interest on the different schemes and promotional discounts offered by the company. There is another problem which affects the popularity of the loyalty cards. Companies are not always able to make customers aware of the changes in schemes of the cards. Therefore the main aim of this report is to explore and understand the customers who already have the loyalty cards and then decide whether Boots new updated version of loyalty cards i.e. advanced loyalty cards scheme will be successful or it can damage the positive attitude of the existing card holders. Research Objectives In order to find the effectiveness of the new advanced loyalty cards, Boots loyalty cards features and its advancements are evaluated step by step. Thus three main objectives of this research study are – At first analyzing the existing loyalty cards in the market and understanding the trends of the customer. The market size has been explored along with the competitors, present in the market. The benefits and features of the different types of loyalty cards are explored and the perceptions of the customers for those features are identified. Secondly, to find the customers who are real users of the loyalty cards? The customers previous data during signup of the loyalty cards are evaluated thoroughly and finding the exact need for the cards for the customers. What are the factors that they have taken into account during signup process are analyzed. Lastly, the competitors’ strategies for gaining market share are analyzed. The different promotional activities and discount given by competitors and their way of building better relationship and connection with customers are identified. Thorough research has been performed on different aspects of the market to fulfil these objectives effectively. Research Area Building relation with the customers is one of the vital roles for any company. The main areas of this research report is to investigate how relationship marketing is important for building relationship with new as well as existing customers. In the process of research various other factors are also taken into account like the consumers and buyers behaviour on certain products. The behaviour of the customers often changes with time with the changes in the society. Thus predicting how customers will react to a certain campaign is very important. Marketing strategies helps to understand the usefulness for the evolution process. In the process the activities of existing customers are also viewed to find whether the loyalty scheme cards have actually created any impact on them or not. When the company retains its existing customers they automatically can achieve a part of the profit without any problem. But for this, Boots need to work hard to keep the customers happy. As there are many players in the market so it’s very difficult to always provide best services to the customers. Customers will definitely lean towards the company who provide more benefits and services. Thus the competitors’ offers and strategies are needed to be evaluated and provide services to customers accordingly in order to build better connection and better relationship. All these things are interconnected to each other and every single segment is influenced by the other elements. Therefore all these interconnected factors are needed to be considered while discussing about the schemes of loyalty cards and these are the main reason behind the company’s loyalty card strategy in order to retain customers by giving those points and rewards. Rationale of research This research is conducted to find the different aspects of the market which influences the customers buying behaviour and the effectiveness of the different strategies of Boots to gain market share. Every market strategy has some positive aspects while on the other hand it can also create a negative impact on the customer. Boots introduced third party involvement for its Advantage Cards which created some positive impact on the contrary also has some negative impact. Competitors’ strategies are also explored in the process to find whether there is any significant difference in strategies of different customers and the perception of the customers for the loyalty cards. The evolution processes of the advantage cards are analyzed and its positive and negative impacts on the customers are thoroughly examined. Finding the faults in previous strategies will help Boots to reconstruct its strategies for any future decisions for the involvement of any third party into its business process. Literature Review The increased turbulence and the competition in business markets have forced firms to move over their strategies of expanding their customer bases. Efforts are being made to ensure that firms retain their existing customers. This has led to the emergence of the concept of customer loyalty and customer relationship management. Malley (1998) quoted the work of McGoldrick and Andre (1997) who stated that customer loyalty is the outcome of affection, commitment and notions of fidelity. They also stated in their framework that behavioural instincts do not influence customer loyalty (Malley, 1998, p.48). Reichheld & Teal (2001) in their book stated that the ultimate motive of a firm should be generate greater value rather than focusing on profit margins. They further stated that customer retention or loyalty is one of the measures by which a firm can analyse the extent of value creation in the product or service offering. While undertaking the research on loyalty the authors also included the loyalties of shareholders and employees in addition to the customers while measuring customer loyalty. The authors showed the importance of loyalty by showing that it was much cheaper for a firm to ensure repeat purchase from a customer rather than searching for a new customer every time. Multiplier effects of customer retention would also include referrals which would help the firm to not only expand their customer base but also to create profits. However he stated that value creation was the most important underlying factor that would help in bringing about retention both among the stakeholders as well as the customers (Reichheld & Teal, 2001). The aspect of promotion customer loyalty and effective customer relationship management has been treated as a subject of importance by business strategies and researchers alike. Siddiqi (2010) in his research on customer loyalty in the retail banking sector quoted the work of Dick and Basu (1994) that linked the aspect of branding with customer loyalty. They also stated that there was no correlation between brand loyalty and service loyalty. In their study they concluded that service loyalty differs from brand loyalty as service based loyalties largely depend on the level of relationships which is quite contrary with products. They also stated the role of intangible aspects like reliability and customer confidence in shaping service loyalty which was not the case with brand or product based loyalty. In their study on customer loyalty in the services sector Dick and Basu also defined two aspects of loyalty namely relative attitude and patronage based behaviour. They further sub divided the two dimensions into four distinct categories namely “loyalty, latent loyalty, spurious loyalty and no loyalty” (Siddiqi, 2010, p.6-7). These categories were largely linked to the relative attitudes and behaviours of the individuals. The research conducted by the authors defined the category of loyalty as positive based relative attitude with high patronage of repeating. Latent loyalty was defined as a positively influenced relative attitude with a high level of repeating patronage. Spurious loyalty was defined as a category that had lower levels of relative attitude with reduced level of repeat patronage. Low loyalty can be defined as a case which has characteristics of lower repeat based attitude and extremely low level of repeat patronage (Siddiqi, 2010, p.6-7). Figure 1: Loyalty based on mental and behavioural patterns (Source: Constabile, n.d., p.6) The figure above shows a matrix that helps in relating the different forms of customer loyalty with the relative behaviour and attitudes of the customers. According to this framework loyalty is largely influenced by behavioural patterns and the attitudes of the individuals which demand the need to ensure greater fulfilment of the customer’s desires by the business organization (Constabile, n.d., p.6). Boora & Singh (2011) conducted a research on the different antecedents of the aspect of customer loyalty. In their research they identified five major antecedents that affect the loyalty of customers for a product or service. These are commitment, trust, satisfaction, communication and conflict management. The authors stated that customer loyalty is largely an effect of the outcome of the manner in which organizations handle these five aspects in the business. In their study they also quoted the work of Oliver et al (1992) who stated that the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty has a non-linear relationship which implies that if customer satisfaction beyond a certain limit would lead to generation of greater customer loyalty. The authors also concluded that customer satisfaction and loyalty are two largely distinct areas that do not share a correlation with each other (Boora & Singh, 2011, p.159-161). Figure 2: Framework of Customer Loyalty (Source: Musa, 2005, p.47) The figure above shows a general framework of inducing customer loyalty. It is very clear from the figure that customer loyalty is largely dependent on customer satisfaction which is again influenced by factors like performance of the direct seller, performance of the product, satisfaction from the seller and finally satisfaction from the product or service. The creation of customer satisfaction leads to generation of a mutual trust which promotes customer loyalty. Perceived performance normally refers to the evaluation of a product or a service mix by the customer after consuming the product or experiencing the service provided by the organization. All the aspects of product or service mix namely product, price, place, promotions, people , process and physical evidence act as parameters for a customer to actually define the perceived performance of a service delivery. Satisfaction largely includes aspects based on the affective response of a customer after experiencing the service from an organization. Perceived value is largely based on the psychological aspects of the customer where the customer analyses the gains and sacrifice following the selection of a particular service. Customers are generally known to trade of certain elements while making a purchase decision. The nature of these tradeoffs and the perceived benefits of this actually play a major role in defining the perceived value of the product or service. This actually makes a large influence of the aspect of repeat purchase which ultimately leads to customer loyalty. It is also clear from the framework shown in the figure that the underlying factor behind customer loyalty lies in the aspect of trust of the customer with the organization. It has also been stated in different research papers that most of the organizational policies devoted towards customer relationship management largely focus upon increasing the aspect of mutual trust among the customers. In doing so they prepare an appropriate marketing mix which helps in to effectively meet the demands of the individuals of the target market. The fulfilment of the demands of the customers generates a feeling of trust and loyalty which helps in fostering customer loyalty (Musa, 2005, p.47-48). The above stated aspect of customer loyalty and its dependence on customer satisfaction was largely refuted by Jones and Sasser (1995) who stated that brand image was the most important factor that influenced customer loyalty unlike customer satisfaction as quoted by many researchers. In order to analyse the presumptions of Jones and Sasser (1995), Clottey, Collier & Stodnick (2008) conducted a research into the factors or drivers of customer loyalty in a retail store. On the basis of a primary research encompassing a sample size of 972 individuals in the US retail market the authors conclude that product/service quality and brand image of the organization were the major drivers of customer loyalty. Out of these factors brand image was seen as the most influencing factors that helped in developing customer loyalty. The findings of this research is in stark contrast with the views of a section of researchers who stated that customer satisfaction unlike brand image was the most influencing factor for customer loyalty (Clottey, Collier & Stodnick, 2008, p.45). The aspect of pricing and its influence on customer loyalty was studied by Kumar (2009) and found out a negative correlation between pricing and customer loyalty. This was stated by the author on the basis of the assumption that a highly price conscious customer would largely resort to switching brands for getting cost advantage. The author also found a negative influence of brand symbolism on the aspect of fostering trust and promoting customer loyalty. The author concluded that benefits from the brand and a feeling of trust with the brand would help in fostering greater trust among the customer thereby leading to generation of customer loyalty (Kumar, 2009, p.384). Figure 3: Customer Loyalty Matrices (Source: Sullivan & Adcock, 2002, p.267) The analysis of literature review reveals the importance of having customer loyalty as a focus point in the strategy formulation of business organizations. The study also shows that in order to generate loyalty it is very important that the firm tends to adopt a strategy that tries to increase value proposition of the product or service. This would help in creating a better relationship thus promoting customer loyalty. The next section would feature a study on the research methodology to be adopted or the primary study and would contain a detailed discussion on the different aspects of the primary research to be used in the study. Research Methodology Data Collection Methods Before wasting time and expense for the collection of primary data, the researcher should check for some secondary data from some previous data that may have been collected for some other purposes but it can be used for the immediate study of the topic. Secondary data can be the internal data of the firm, like the sales invoices or some warranty cards, or it can also be some external data of the company like some published data or it can also be some commercially available articles. Often, government census acts as a very valuable source for collecting the secondary data. Secondary data must be supplemented by the primary data for the study at hand. The Primary data can be collected by mainly two processes i.e. by communication or can be by the observational process. Communication is like questioning the respondents either verbally or by written method. This is a very versatile method, it only needs to ask for the information, but the response may not always be accurate. Communication usually is a cheaper and quicker process than observation. Observation mainly involves the recording the actions of the respondent and is often performed by either a person or it can also be some mechanical or some electronic device. Observation is not as versatile as the communication process since some of the attributes of a person may not be readily observable, like attitudes, awareness, intentions, motivation and knowledge. In the support of this Report, the previous reports of some literature survey are very important before analyzing the market for Health care and Beauty industry as it will helps us to understand the target market and the end user behaviours towards a product and find the potential for a product into a particular segment. Research Design A research design includes the framework of the main research which acts as a guiding template for conducting the primary research. The research design is vital as it defines the structure for the entire research. The three common methods of research design include qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. The outcome of the research approach when combined with practical aspects generates into a research framework which serves as a guiding template for conducting other aspects of research namely data collection, analysis and finally report writing (Creswell, 2003, p.2-5). Research methodologies can either be descriptive or exploratory in nature. The two most popular forms of research designs include descriptive and explanatory research. The two forms differ on the manner of their approach while answering a research question. Descriptive research techniques normally try to answer as to why a particular aspect is going on. These are normally abstract in nature and include research question like analysing the demographic trends of a region, criminal or education statistics for a region etc. Descriptive research normally includes providing an exploratory framework for a research question. Explanatory research on the other hand tries to answer the reasons behind a particular aspect of the research question. These are used to answer research questions with regards to explaining an in depth reason behind a particular research question. These include instances like explaining the reason behind the increasing crime rate in the nation, or reason behind the declining sales volumes in an organization. In the context of the particular study an explanatory research framework would be used for the study. The use of an explanatory research framework assumes significance as it would help in generating a cause and effect analysis of the research question. This is important considering the nature of the research objectives which try to determine the effectiveness of loyalty cards in generating customer loyalty. The main aim of the research question is to identify the business prospects and viability of loyalty cards for bringing about better customer relationships. The use of an explanatory research design would help Boots to analyse the effectiveness and importance of loyalty cards. Explanatory research design would reveal a deeper analysis of the topic of research which would help the organization to not only evaluate the present strategy of customer loyalty adopted by the firm but would also provide a set of plausible recommendations so as to improve upon its customer relationship strategy. The research would be carried out by using primary data collected from the respondents selected from the target population. The questions to be included in the questionnaire would be formed on the basis of the important aspects that are associated with customer loyalty. The use of primary data would help in correlating the facts analysed in the secondary research and literature review with the actual information from the market. This would help in a better understanding of the research question. Primary data would be collected from a set of respondents chosen for the study. It would also helps Boots analyse whether its association with Treat Street for its loyalty program would help in gaining sustainable competitive advantage. The use of primary data would also reveal the gaps in the customer preferences and the offerings of the firm. This would help the firm to take proper strategies so as to maintain a good relationship with the customer. In the case of the present study a mixed research methodology would be used for conducting the study and gaining practical and real time market information from the respondents. Mixed research methodologies involve a combination of qualitative as well as quantitative methodologies. The use of a mixed research methodology would help in an in depth as well as quantitative analysis of the response generated from the chosen set of respondents. This is important considering the fact that the questionnaire would contain both open as well as closed ended questions. Hence using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research techniques would help in a better analysis of the data set generated from the respondents. The choice of research design also assumes importance as an explanatory research technique would be most efficient to analyse the research question for the present study. Data Collection Method and Research Instrument Data collection constitutes an important part of primary research as it shows the framework of the manner in which data is to be collected from the respondents. There are various ways of collecting data from the respondents. The choice of a data collecting tool assumes significance as it determines the nature of data collected for analysing a research question. There are a large number of data collection techniques which includes focus group interviews, online interviews, self administered surveys, in depth survey and mail survey (Burns & Bush, 2007, p.259). The choices of data collection methods are largely dependent upon the choice of research framework. The data collection techniques for qualitative research methods include focus group interviews, in depth non random interviews and public meetings. Data collection techniques for quantitative research techniques include personal interviews, telephonic interviews, mail based surveys and observation techniques. Mail surveys involve sending out questionnaires on e-mails and other web pages as a link such that questionnaires can be filled up and submitted by the individuals without actually meeting the person. In the context of the present study mail interview technique would be used. The significance of using this technique is that it would help in gathering feedback from a large section of the population. Moreover this technique would also imply cost advantage for the researcher as they come at relatively cheaper cost. While using this technique for the study social networking sites would be used so as to gain access to a large number of respondents. After selecting the data collection technique it becomes important to select an appropriate research instrument to gather the data from the set of selected respondents. Questionnaire is one of the most important tools to collect data from the respondents in a market. A questionnaire can either contain open ended or closed ended questions. Open ended questions are normally used in situation where the researcher aims to use a qualitative framework for the research. Closed ended questions are more often used in quantitative research analysis where the data collected from the respondents is quantified to extract meaningful information. In a typical questionnaire for different scales are used namely, nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio scales. The choice of the scale depends on the nature of the research question and the form of analysis the researcher intends to do on the data gathered from the questionnaire (Nargundkar, 2003, p.53-56). In the context of the present study a questionnaire would be prepared to analyse and gather the information from the chosen set of respondents. The questionnaire would contain a mix of open as well as closed ended questions. In case of the closed ended questions an interval scale would be used which would help in a generating a better response from the respondents with regards to the research objectives. Sampling Process Sampling process involves selecting the set of respondents from a given sample population. Using a sampling technique also helps in reducing the number of respondents which reduce the time required to complete a research. The use of sampling techniques also increase the scope of the research as a smaller set of respondents provides more flexibility to the researcher to conduct the research. This helps in generating the best solution for the research question. Since the number of respondents gets reduced by using a sampling technique hence the results can be carried out with greater accuracy which would help in generating a good result for the research question (Cochran, 2007, p.1-2). Sampling techniques can be of two types namely probability and non probability based sampling techniques. Probability sampling techniques are those in which every respondent has an equal chance of getting selected for being a respondent for the research. Non probabilistic sampling techniques are largely different as they selective pick individuals for a particular study (Babbie, 2008, p.203). In the context of this study a non probability based sampling technique would be used. The sample size consists of 40 respondents that would constitute women who are users of loyalty cards. Method of Analysis The method of analysis for the present study would consist of a mixed research framework. Cross tabulation method would be used to analyse the data collected from the survey as it would provide better results in a short period of time. Use of a cross tabulation technique would help in correlating the different variables associated with the research question. This would help in determining the effect of different variables on the aspect of imparting customer loyalty. Use of cross tabulation technique would help in analysing the influence of each of the selected variables on the dependent variable. This would help in understanding the influence of each of the variables in affecting the aspect of customer loyalty, which would help Boots to not only evaluate its existing strategy of customer loyalty but would also help in preparing a more better strategy with regards to promoting loyalty among the customers and for maintaining a better relationship with the customer. Limitations The research study has been carried out with extreme care however certain errors may also emerge during the process of conducting the primary research. Since mail surveys would be conducted hence there is a chance of generating respondent errors. Sampling errors can also occur which may affect the results of the primary study. Initially since the study would be conducted in a single nation hence a generalised solution cannot be referred from the findings of the study. Scope of Further Study Further studies for this project would include a conjoint analysis of the factors affecting the aspect of customer loyalty. This technique would help in analysing the effect of different variables as well as the competitor’s strategy on the aspect of customer loyalty. This would help in framing appropriate strategies for the future so as to generate competitive advantage in the long run in the turbulent business environment. References Babbie, E.R. 2008. The basics of social research. Cengage Learning. Boora, K.K. & Singh, H. 2011. CUSTOMER LOYALTY AND ITS ANTECEDENTS: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.skirec.com/images/download/apjrbm/APJRBM-VOL2-ISSUE-1-JAN-2011/2.11%20Harvinder%20Singh%20paper%20Customer_Loyalty_2010.pdf [Accessed on April 6, 2011]. Brandy, D. 2010. Essentials of International Marketing. M.E. Sharpe. Burns, A.C. & Bush, R.F. 2007. Marketing Research. Pearson Education India. 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Available at: http://smib.vuw.ac.nz:8081/WWW/ANZMAC2005/cd-site/pdfs/6-Relationship-Mktg/6-Musa.pdf [Accessed on April 6, 2011]. Loyalty Chain: Exploring The Moderating Effect Of Trust Nargundkar, R. 2003. Marketing Research-Text & Cases 2E. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Reichheld, F.E. & Teal, T. 2001. The loyalty effect: the hidden force behind growth, profits, and lasting value. Harvard Business Press. Siddiqi, K.O. 2010. Interrelations between service quality attributes, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the retail banking sector in Bangladesh. [Pdf]. Available at: http://abrmr.com/pdf/Interrelations%20between%20service%20quality%20attributes,%20customer%20satisfaction%20and%20customer%20loyalty%20in%20the%20retail%20banking%20sector%20in%20Bangladesh%20-%20Kazi%20Oma.pdf. [Accessed on April 6, 2011]. Sullivan, M. & Adcock, D. 2002. Retail marketing. Cengage Learning EMEA. Annexure Annexure 1: Questionnaire for Primary Research Name: Gender: Age: Please provide a rating with regards to loyalty cards and provide importance of each of the stated factors by placing a tick mark on the box. Factors Very Important Important Neutral Somewhat Important Unimportant Price Discounts Exchange offers Gifts Enhanced value added service Redemptions Other Benefits Do you feel loyalty cards help in improving trust with the brand? a. Yes b. No Does the aspect of loyalty card affect your purchase decision? a. Yes b. No Do you feel that loyalty programs help in building a brand image? a. Yes b. No Comment on the usefulness of the loyalty card scheme introduced by Boots? Compare the benefits of the loyalty card issued by Boots versus its competitors? Any suggestions for further improvement? Read More