Customer engagement has been a focus of a significant amount of research. Most of the prior research on customer engagement typically focused on engagement and loyalty in loyalty program context, while the impact of rewarded customer engagement on program members has largely been missed out. Additionally, no prior study yet has focused on the conceptualization of rewarded customer engagement, while exploring and comparing its significance on various digital platforms, such as loyalty programs and Metaverse. Thus, this study aims to conceptualize rewarded customer engagement while investigating its impact on loyalty program members, and whether it induces and/or encourages their engagement in brand’s Metaverse platform(s).

Despite significant research and progress in examining the effects of loyalty programs on consumer behavior and firm performance, it is still unclear the firm value implications of these programs. The main goal of this article is to investigate whether announcements related to the loyalty program introduction affect firm value. In addition, the current research examines the moderating role of program, firm, and market factors in order to present a complete picture. The authors test the hypotheses empirically by conducting an event study of 134 announcements which cover a set of firms in the United States in five industries for 17 years from 2000 to 2016. We find that on average, the introduction of a loyalty program is positively related to firm value. Findings of this study will help managers understand how and under what conditions, they should introduce a loyalty program in order to affect firm value positively.

In the last decade loyalty programs have gained popularity across various industries. They are one of the most popular marketing tools that companies use to increase retention, enhance loyalty and gather ‘big data’. The number of companies adopting loyalty programs is rapidly increasing with fashion department stores grown their loyalty program subscriptions by 70% between 2010 and 2012 (Colloquy, 2013). One of the main reasons for this growth can be attributed to the benefits fashion retailers offer to their customers. A new body of current research had directed its attention to a comprehensive set of benefits offered by loyalty programs as well as their potential to increase customer retention and profitability (Evanschitzky et al., 2012). Until recently, it was debatable if loyalty programs can be effective and appropriate in luxury retailing (Lowenstein, 2009), despite research evidence showing a positive effect of loyalty programs’ benefits on customer retention (e.g. Mimouni-Chaabane & Volle, 2010). Traditionally, luxury companies and retailers build loyalty through top-end and differentiated customer experiences. If loyalty schemes were to succeed in the luxury sector they had to deliver the kind of recognition and rewards that make luxury shoppers feel remarkable. Given the growing interest in loyalty programs and scarcity of research related to their effectiveness in the luxury fashion department stores, this study comes to examine the effectiveness of such programs. In particular, this research examines how the utilitarian, hedonic and symbolic perceived benefits from loyalty programs can influence the satisfaction and trust with the program and consequently store loyalty. These relationships are compared between high- and low-end fashion department stores and the differences in their effectiveness are reported. To test these relationships data were collected form a sample of 984 consumers from an online panel in US, using a structured questionnaire. A range of different department stores that offer loyalty programs were pre-selected through a rater procedure to represent the high- and low- fashion department stores. Using structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis, findings support that the effectiveness of loyalty programs is important to both high-and low-end fashion retailing settings but the strength of this effectiveness varies across the two settings. Specifically, hedonic and symbolic benefits derived from loyalty programs found to be more important in the high-end rather than the low-end fashion retailers. In contrast, utilitarian benefits found to be much more effective in influencing customers’ satisfaction with the program in the low-end fashion retailing. The results of this research address an important research gap and help to better understand customers' perceptions of loyalty program benefits obtained from high- and low-end fashion department stores. Finally, the findings provide clear guidelines for managers in both high- and low-end fashion retailing on how to design effectively their loyalty program rewards, by strategically allocating their resources to the benefits that are more important in their setting.

Customer loyalty programs have been widely adopted for customer relationship management all over the world. The proliferation of loyalty programs causes program competition which weakens the effectiveness of loyalty programs at the end of customers. In general, existed research suggests that the increasing competition among rival programs in a single industry may cancel out the expected roles of loyalty programs (Mägi, 2003). For example, program competition is a substantial threat to customer lifetime value and share of wallet (Leenheer, van Heerde, Bijmolt, & Smidts, 2007; Meyer-Waarden, 2007). Liu and Yang (2009) find the sales impact of a single loyalty program diminishes as program competition increases. Their study also shows this negative effect is weaker in a highly expandable product category. Although previous studies have examined the suppressive effect of program competition on financial outcomes of loyalty programs, little research has explored its role on attitudinal customer loyalty formation process. This study aims to explore the differential roles of program competition on two formation processes of customer loyalty. It intends to contribute to the loyalty programs literature in two aspects. First, this study examines two routines of customer loyalty formation in the context of loyalty programs. That is, a company can leverage program offerings to build customer loyalty through increased customer satisfaction or strengthened customer identification with the company. Second, this study examines the moderating roles of program competition on those two loyalty-generating routines. Specifically, it finds customer identification is more important for building customer loyalty at the presence of program loyalty.

This study examines the determinants of the member customer’s decision of redeeming versus accumulating loyalty program (LP) points by focusing on the effects of the different channels of transaction (online versus offline) and the demographic information of member customers. Our study is based on customer-level demographic and transaction data on a major partnership LP in Korea, the OK Cashbag (OCB) program. This study differs from the existing literature in three aspects. First, the dataset employed for this study enables us to compare member customers’ point redemption behavior between online and offline channels, whereas previous studies demonstrate coupon redemption behavior either in an online (Chiou-Wei and Inman 2008) or an offline setting (e.g., Cronovich 1997; Kwon and Kwon 2007; Mittal 1994; Reibstein and Traver 1982; Ward and Davis 1978). Second, the current study investigates not only the main effects of demographic variables, but also a series of interaction effects between the online channel and each demographic variable. Clear empirical evidence of an interaction effect would provide an LP provider with significant managerial implications. Third, rich data on customers’ transaction behavior with matching demographic information for each member customer enable us to conduct both transaction-level and individual customer-level analyses. Therefore, an individual customer’s transaction behavior can be analyzed in more detail for robust results and richer implications. We find that transactions that occur through online channels and those made by younger customers demonstrate a greater tendency of redeeming LP points as opposed to accumulating them. We also find that online channels exhibit a moderating role by mitigating the demographic effects on member customers’ point redemption behavior. These findings allow the LP provider to predict the future LP point balance by analyzing its main channel of transaction and the demographic profiles of its member customers.

This study aimed to classify attendants of a wine training institute according to loyalty for wine training service program and to deduce the core managing points in a wine training program by IPA (Importance-Performance Analysis). Self-administered questionnaires were collected from 192 trainees and statistical data analysis completed using SPSS ver. 18.0. As a result of clustering analysis based on trainee loyalty from both attitude and behavioral perspectives, four classification groups were identified: a "genuine" loyalty group, a "latent" loyalty group, a "mendacious" loyalty group, and a "low" loyalty group. For the genuine loyalty group, the importance of total service quality was 4.32 on average whereas the performance was measured as 4.22; thus there was little difference between importance to quality and performance. However, for the other three groups, especially the low loyalty group, there were significant wide gaps between importance to quality and performance. According to IPA, different service quality items were posted on the 'Focus here' quadrant (a domain with high service quality importance but low performance) by group, while the other three quadrants had several common items regardless of the group. Finally, the core quality managing points were different depending on the level of trainee loyalty. Therefore, it is necessary to plan and conduct a wine training program that reflects the characteristics and needs of its students, which will lead to a differentiated management strategy according to the level of loyalty.

The purpose of this study was to understand the effect of loyalty program in family and fastfood restaurant on relationship quality (trust, commitment) and revisit intention. Based on total 394 samples obtained from empirical research, this study reviewed the reliability and fitness of a research model using the Amos program. The hypothesized relationships in the model were simultaneously tested using a structural equation model (SEM). The proposed model provided an adequate fit to the data, χ2 102.338 (df 48), GFI .959, RMR .049, NFI .970, CFI .984 SEM resulted that loyalty progam (β= .429, t=7.880, p〈 .001) showed a positive significant effect on trust, and that loyalty program (β= .455, t=9.532, p〈 .001) had a positive significant effect on commitment. Also, both trust (β= .450, t=6.595, p〈 .001) and commitment (β= .474, t=5.117, p〈 .001) had a positive significant effect on revisit intention. In addition, there were moderating effects related to restaurant type (family and fastfood restaurant) in terms of causal relationships between loyalty program, relationship quality and revisit intention. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of quality factors on value, satisfaction and loyalty in a wine training program. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: Structural verification of the wine training program loyalty model showed that the quality of the wine training program positively affected both value (p<0.001) and satisfaction (p<0.001). Further, the value of the wine training program positively affected satisfaction (p<0.01), which in turn positively influenced loyalty (p<0.001). The quality of the wine training program was presented as solicitude for students, textbook and curriculum, qualification and confidence of lecturer and staff, and training quality, whereas the value of the program was composed of sense of belonging, promotion of self-esteem, good impression on others, and improvement of social status. Therefore, the wine training institute's intensive management of the quality and value of the program could induce students' loyalty by enhancing satisfaction for the wine training program.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how users' perceived benefits of hotel F&B loyalty program affected their relationship quality(trust and satisfaction) and loyalty on hotel products and services(hotel food & beverage products/services) and how their relationship quality(trust and satisfaction) influenced their loyalty. The model was tested in the settings of five-star hotels using a sample of current members of food & beverage membership program. Empirical results confirmed that not only perceived benefits of hotel F&B loyalty program affects users' perceived relationship quality(trust and satisfaction) and loyalty on hotel products and services(hotel food & beverage products/services) but that their perceived relationship quality influences loyalty on hotel products and services(hotel food & beverage products/services). According to the results, complimentary dining coupon and food discount strongly affected relationship quality(trust and satisfaction) and loyalty on hotel products and services(hotel food & beverage products/services). Strategically, it is recommended to appeal those benefits to current and potential members to maximize the loyalty. Also, it should be considered as major factors to re-package hotel F&B loyalty program.