Program Benefits, Satisfaction and Loyalty in Retail Loyalty Program : Exploring the Roles of Program Trust and Program Commitment

Investigations to determine whether benefits that members derived from a loyalty program could influence their satisfaction, trust, commitment, loyalty with the program and ultimately store loyalty are critical to elucidating the roles and significance of constructs and advancing management practice. With this in mind, our research aims to assess the effects of the loyalty program's benefits offered by one of the leading superstores1 in Malaysia on its members' loyalty towards the program. We also attempt to explore the roles of program trust and program commitment in the hypothesized framework. The framework was developed and tested on 167 loyalty cardholders of a particular superstore. The study's goal of developing a plausible framework to offer a richer insight of how program benefits could finally influence store loyalty was achieved. The results exemplify that program benefits are a strong driver of members' satisfaction with the program and linkages of program benefits - program loyalty - store loyalty were established. The mediating roles of program trust and commitment were significant in the model. However, no direct relationship from program satisfaction to program loyalty has been found. Our findings reveal important implications for future research and management practice