Customer Relationship Management: Can Global Loyalty Programs Really Enhance Loyalty? an Empirical Analysis of an Automobile Industry

Nowadays, relationships with customers are becoming increasingly important even for the largest players. More and more value is placed by the companies on enhancing their responsiveness to customer needs, thousands of CRM projects are launched every day to build customer loyalty. Now it is not enough to provide a high-quality product or service, it is necessary to satisfy the customer all the way along his purchasing path: before, during and after a sale. Having satisfied customers though doesn't give a cause for relaxation, as what is really important for the company is the profit, generated by the customers and studies show that satisfied customers are not necessarily those who create extra profit. What really does matter is loyalty. A positive correlation between customer loyalty and profitability has become widely recognized and this led to an increased popularity of the Customer Loyalty Programs. The purpose of this work is to get a better understanding of the Customer Loyalty Programs and to answer a question, whether these programs can really enhance loyalty, based on the example of an automobile industry.