Exploring loyal qualities: assessing survey‐based loyalty measures

Purpose – This paper sets out to provide a step towards simplifying and shortening loyalty surveys for marketers and to summarise and to categorise more than 30 survey‐based loyalty measures administered in previous academic surveys. Design/methodology/approach – This research took a step back from theory to re‐define the concept of loyalty. An exploratory perspective using two service markets was taken to examine a broad range of survey‐based loyalty measures. Findings – The results of this research provide support for the more recent view that there are different ways in which customers can be loyal. The results of this research suggest that attitudinal loyalty could be the most important dimension for marketers to monitor. The exploratory method selected in this research suggests that dimensions of loyalty may include propensity to be loyal, behavioural intentions, complaining behaviour, resistance to competing offers, attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty. Practical implications – There are important managerial implications arising from this research. First, loyalty should be considered as more than one thing. Second, this research has provided a step towards consolidating a wide range of survey‐based loyalty measures that exist in the academic literature, helping to simplify loyalty measurement for marketers. This research paper provides a guide of the better survey‐based measures by identifying “pure” measures of loyalty for marketers. Marketers will be able to better understand what type of loyalty a measure captures. Originality/value – Valuable for marketers who can be helped to simplify and shorten their surveys by better understanding what type of loyalty a survey measure captures and which measures may be most appropriate for their needs.