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How Profound Is the Allure of Endowed Status in Hierarchical Loyalty Programs?

Eggert, Andreas; Garnefeld, Ina; Steinhoff, Lena

Abstract:

Hierarchical loyalty programs are common relationship marketing instruments that award elevated status to customers exceeding a certain spending level (e.g., gold membership, platinum customer). In business practice, some companies also offer elevated status to selected customers even if they do not meet the required spending level, in an attempt to profit from the profound allure of status. Relying on social psychology research, this study analyzes the loyalty impact of such a status endowment. A first experimental study reveals the bright and dark sides of endowed status, with customer gratitude and customer skepticism acting as mediating mechanisms. A second experiment delineates that in order to alleviate the dark side, managers should let target customers make an active choice to be endowed with status and select target
customers who are close to achieving that status on their own.


Volltext §
DOI: 10.5445/KSP/1000038784/04
Cover der Publikation
Zugehörige Institution(en) am KIT Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften – Institut für Informationswirtschaft und Marketing (IISM)
Publikationstyp Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Publikationsjahr 2014
Sprache Englisch
Identifikator ISSN: 2198-8005
urn:nbn:de:swb:90-415544
KITopen-ID: 1000041554
Erschienen in Customer & Service Systems
Band 1
Heft 1
Seiten 31-36
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KIT – Die Forschungsuniversität in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft
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