The Main Antecedent of Customer Loyalty in Moroccan Banking Sector

Abstract: Loyal customers are always considered an asset for any business. The aim of this research is to examine the main antecedents of customer loyalty. Data were collected through a survey from Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier and Marrakech. The Pearson correlation was used to test research hypotheses and the multiple regression analysis helped to find the most important antecedent to customer loyalty. Data analysis revealed that customer satisfaction, trust, corporate image and service quality were important factors affecting customer loyalty, with customer satisfaction emerging as the most important of these. The banking sector needs to develop strategies to increase customer loyalty by enhancing customer satisfaction along with trust level, corporate image and service quality. It is envisaged that this study will set a foundation for future research work concerning this aspect of business activity in Morocco and in general, the broader service industry context. Keywords: Customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, trust, corporate image, service quality INTRODUCTION In the contemporary milieu, customer loyalty poses one of the most dilemmas that confront the Moroccan banking sector. Knowing that the loyal customers are the most important asset to a bank, business managers need to develop marketing strategies that promote and maintain growth in their numbers. Keeping a large base of loyal customers intact gives a competitive advantage to any business. Attracting new customers costs much as six times more keeping the current ones (Rosenberg and Czepiel, 1984). Customer loyalty be very significant for banks. It indicates the degree to which their clients maintain a long term relationship with them (Fullerton, 2003) and it has the capacity to strengthen this association. In fact, it is the most enduring asset for a company (Pan and Tian, 2008). A loyal customer generally behaves better than a satisfied one and prefers to repurchase the products and services continuously to an extent that her patronage is retained for a long period of time. Reichheld and Sasser (1990) stated that a growth of 5 percent in customer retention can result in an increase in profitability of between 25 and 85 percent depending on the type of the industry. The Moroccan banks that promote and maintain good customer loyalty would be able to enhance their position in the international banking marketplace and augment their market share in this sphere. Customer loyalty would therefore constitute a competitive advantage. It can be achieved through marketing efforts (Dick and Basu, 1994) and can further be utilized as publicity to attract new customers. Loyal customers would tend to recommend the bank to their friends and relatives. Reichheld (1996) argued that an increase in customer loyalty generates a high net present value for companies. Therefore, the aim of this empirical research paper is to examine the major drivers of customer loyalty in the Moroccan banking sector. This research paper has been organized as follows: first, literature is reviewed. The definitions of the antecedents are presented in this section. Second, a theoretical framework is proposed with different hypotheses. In the third section, research methodology is described including data collection, sampling methods and measurements. In the fourth section, the results are presented and interpreted. Finally, the concluding comments are made. LITERATURE REVIEW Oliver (1997) defined customer loyalty as a profound devotion to regularly repurchase of a favored product or service. He also stated that the customer would maintain her behavior despite strong marketing efforts from alternative companies. The competitors are then efficiently defeated. This explanation underscores the view that customer loyalty is a behavior response to the environment. Furthermore, for Jacoby and Chestnut (1978), customer loyalty is a prejudiced psychological manner exhibited recurrently as a commitment response whilst Healy (2007) points out that it is an important attitude that favors good marketing relationships and a person's repeat patronage (Dick and Basu, 1994), Satisfaction is essentially an overall assessment of the customer's experience with a product or service (Sindhav et al. …