Customer Loyalty: Tourism Services Marketing Case - Essay Example

Loyalty satisfaction mainly occurs only when an individual need, demands and expectation are met and exceeded. When customers’ demands are satisfied; their loyalty to the business increases (Eduardo, Arturo, Jorge, 2008). Mainly increased customer satisfaction from a given company products and services increases the customers loyalty. The moment customers feel unsatisfied by the goods and services of a given company; they always tend to complain causing their loyalty to decreases. Customer’s loyalty depends on the business promise to offer quality services and products to a consumer. Firm’s service, customer satisfaction from those services, and customers loyalty to the company’s services and products is directly related (Khan, 2012). To any inexperienced customer, satisfaction is the key in determining his or her royalty to a given company service or products. Customer loyalty to any firms’ products or services comes through repeated positive experiences. In an example, a family in California opted to travel and tour the city of Illinois, the city famous for raising the current president of United State of America. The family sought the services of Premier tourism and marketing. The firm’s staff patiently handled the family with exceptionally delicate care. Having not sought services of any other tourism firm before, the family members were directed on how to book tickets. Throughout the period of the service, the premium tourism and marketing employees was patient with the family (Shanker, Ravi, 2002). The services they received from the employees impressed them. Members were all satisfied by the quality of the services they got on that day from the premier tourism firm. All the family members up to date seek the services of the premier tourism firm whenever they plan to travel or visit any state within U.S or even outside U.S. Extensive research on the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty has indicated that satisfied customers do not always lead to loyal customers. Though it is true that customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are directly related, research has shown that the two are not always positive (Paul, Earl, 2011). Though good quality goods and services from a firm lead to high customer satisfaction. High customer satisfaction does not automatically increase consumer’s loyalty. Through practical experiments, customer satisfaction though has a role in determining the customer’s loyalty; it actually does not have a highly significant influence on the customer loyalty. For example, when Stir tourism and travel internet marketing company offered services through social media like twitter, facebook book and YouTube tourism, many customers repeatedly looked upon the firm for all their tourism solutions, but with time, there rose another firm known as U.S travel and tourism export which offered similar services at a lower cost. Majority of customers, though satisfied with services they were getting from the former firm, shifted to the new firm services (Khan, 2012). Research and practical experiment have found out that numerous efforts undertaken by different business firms to increase customers’ loyalty, through offering high quality services and products with a main objective of improving customer satisfaction have failed (Eduardo, Arturo, Jorge, 2008). Business analyst believes that meeting customers’ expectation, only helps the business to improve the product or service quality, but does not directly lead to customer loyalty. Many business researchers have failed to agree on the relationship between customer satisfaction, and loyalty, many explanations given about customer oriented business has shifted from the idea of firm satisfying its customers to how business firms can create loyal customers (Eduardo, Arturo, Jorge, 2008). Conclusion Product value is more subjective perception, as opposed to objective evaluation. Service quality is only formed after an individual consumer compares her expectation with the real experience she went through while purchasing and consuming a firm’s goods or services (Paul, Earl, 2011). Firm’s service being intangible, then service quality evaluation is subject to customer’s personal feelings. So before, businesses make any improvement plans; they need to carefully design an objective evaluation system to access their services. OUESTION2 Pricing is the key to everything regarding consumer choice. Through the law of the demand curve, it is true that products that a consumer is willing and able to buy are inversely related to its price. Under any circumstance, the price of a given product declines, and then the lower opportunity cost created by a decrease in price will induce consumers to purchase more of the commodity that has experienced a decrease in price (Sivagnanam, 2010). This will automatically happen even if customers have to give up the opportunity of purchasing other products. This clearly highlights the consumers’ sensitivity to the price of a given commodity in his or her final decision on which product he or she opt to purchase(Eduardo , Arturo , Jorge ,2008). Consumers will always adapt to a tendency of substituting a product that has become cheaper for goods that are relatively more expensive. Secondly, the foremost factor that makes the price of a commodity a key factor in consumer final choice is the fact that, a decrease in price of a product increases the consumer’s real income though in the real sense, the consumer’s income still remains unchanged (Sivagnanam, 2010). In case the price of a commodity decreases, then customers bargaining power increases irrespective of whether their salaries has increased or remained constant. For example, if a tourist hotel rent decreases by $75 per month, then the tourist stands a chance to buy of a number of other essentials he or she needs (Khan, 2012). This increase in real income always has the same effect s if the cost of the hotel room had remained the same, but the tourist income had risen by $75 per month. This power in price to dictate the ability of any consumer to purchase a commodity has utterly influenced consumer’s final choice (Shanker, Ravi, 2002). This is due to the fact that prices are the key determinant on the customers real ability to purchase a given commodity or service. Challenges of price as the determinant of consumers’ choice Though the price is the key to customer decisions on the product to purchase, some consumers who mostly intend to purchase long term commodities will opt to consider the quality and durability of the product rather than its price (Eduardo, Arturo, Jorge, 2008). Sometimes price of commodities may be regulated by the government. This makes commodities of different firms to retail at the same price. In such a situation, customers have to shift their concerns from the price of the product to other features like quality of the product, availability of the products, and also the taste and preference of the customer (Shanker, Ravi, 2002). Conclusion Pricing of commodities plays a crucial role in determining the consumers final decision to purchase a given service or commodity (Khan, 2012). In most cases, pricing totally influences majority of consumers’ final decisions to buy a product. In cases of a regulated market, consumers may overlook prices as the final factor to base their decisions. In this scenario, consumers may opt to consider other factors like taste, color, and nutritional value of a commodity in making their final choices purchase a product. References Eduardo Torres-Moraga, Arturo Z. Vásquez-Parraga, Jorge Zamora-González, (2008) "Customer satisfaction and loyalty: start with the product, culminate with the brand", Journal of Consumer Marketing. Khan (2012). Towards understanding customer loyalty: An empirical study on emotional attachment. International Journal of Innovations in Business. Retrieved from http://www.cibmp.org/journals/index.php/ijib/article/view/17 Paul Williams, Earl Naumann, (2011) "Customer satisfaction and business performance: a firm-level analysis", Journal of Services Marketing. Sivagnanam, (2010) Business Economics, Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Shanker, Ravi, (2002) Services Marketing: The Indian Perspective, Excel Books India. Read More