A dynamic model of customer loyalty

Competitive and economic advantages stemming from the strengthening of customer relationships have been widely tested and discussed by practitioners and scholars in the relationship marketing and in the customer satisfaction and postconsumption research fields. Many studies, early developed into the business to business marketing field, have focused on antecedents and consequences of market relationships, identifying cognitive, affective and behavioural constructs (satisfaction, trust, loyalty and co-operation) that qualify the relationship life cycle, from customer satisfaction up to customer loyalty and partnership. Cognitive and behavioural constructs operating during the relationship life cycle have been widely analysed, and thanks to these studies it is possible to define a model of "customer buying process", as a preliminary step before submitting it to the canonical falsification process. Starting from an overview of the literature, this paper proposes a dynamic model of customer loyalty, in the marketing relationship perspective. The paper aims to identify the antecedents and the consequences of the evolutionary links between the several relational constructs connected with customer satisfaction and loyalty. The paper formulates research propositions on the loyalty development process, which will have to be empirically tested in order to theorise a model of customer buying behaviour, useful for loyalty management purposes, both in business to business and in business to consumer markets.

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