Antecedents of Customer Loyalty and Word of Mouth: A Study on Consumer Durables in Emerging Economies

Abstract

In the era of Marketing 4.0, where customers and companies interact online as well as offline, an immense need to understand the actions and reactions of a potential customer is generated. The expectation of the customer is sure to rise in the time ahead. There are challenges for organizations to prove their sustainability with all this. Among all challenges, developing loyalty among customers remains foremost, keeping into consideration the supremacy of customer loyalty (CL) in influencing other customers by using word of mouth (WOM). Organizations strategically use many tools to maintain a positive WOM and its image, that is, corporate image (CI) and brand image (BI) lead the confrontation. This article reveals that people are very rational while buying durables. The customer evaluates the CI and BI differently to buy high-priced and low-priced electronic products, which is a price-sensitive industry. The finding indicates that CI and BI have a significant impact on CL and WOM in the case of both high-priced and low-priced products, with a strong distinction in their intensity. Organizations must understand the presence of variation, as a loyal customer is the right source of positive WOM. Furthermore, the contribution of gender towards CL, BI and WOM is not seen, but is present in CI. Thus, the study provides new phenomena for using CI and BI as marketing tools to improve CL and WOM.