The role of perceived value in a customer loyalty model: an investigation of the Australian coffee outlet industry

Competition m the Australian coffee outlet industry has intensified due to the invasion of international chain coffee outlets in recent years. Retaining and cultivating customer loyalty has become increasingly important for both independent and chain coffee outlet marketers and operators due to the highly competitive environment. Perceived value is emerging as a major theme and receiving growing attention from academics and practitioners in the marketing literature. Its central focus is to gain a competitive advantage among competitors. The purpose of this thesis was to develop and test a model of customer loyalty through a perceived value focus. The marketing literature has produced two schools of thought on the determinants of customer loyalty in services industries. The transaction perspective puts forward the view that service quality and satisfaction drives customer loyalty in service industries. The relationship marketing perspective puts forward the view that relational benefits to and relationship quality for the service provider, substantially drive customer loyalty in service industries. On the other hand, some researchers advocate value perceptions as superior indicators of customer loyalty. Among these notions, the relationship quality construct of satisfaction and affective commitment has co.n spicuous impact on customer loyalty . This thesis develops a perceived value-based model which provides an understanding of the role of perceived value in the relationship process of creating customer loyalty and in predicting customers' preference of chain or independent coffee outlets.