Negative effects of loyalty programs : An empirical investigation on the French Mobile Phone sector.

Loyalty programs have been the object of a growing interest in the area of marketing. However, it is quite surprising that there is no generally accepted theoretical or empirical research that study how these programs could elicit negative effects on consumer behavior. Using a two-step method, qualitative and quantitative, conducted in the mobile phone sector in 2007, the research explores the potential negative effects of loyalty programs. Results indicate that loyalty programs can generate negative emotions, resulting in extreme behaviors, such as shunning the operator a direct competitor. This demonstrated that loyalty programs are apt to encourage behaviors that oppose the ones they actually should.