Polygamous Loyalty And Retail Chains’ Loyalty Programme Holders In Kenya

ABSTRACT

The problem of the present study is that despite the significant findings of the pilot study and existing literature on prevalence of polygamous loyalty amongst the retail chains’ loyalty programmes’ holders in Kenya, much is unknown about the drivers or factors influencing this phenomenon. Polygamous loyalty was conceptualized as customers’ membership to several different retail chains’ loyalty schemes. The study objective therefore was to establish factors influencing this phenomenon. To achieve this, the research tested hypotheses derived from existing theories to examine the relationship between conceptualized independent variables (Satisfaction, Alternative Attractiveness, loyalty programme service quality, stores’ brand attitudes, price perceptions, service quality, trust and customers perceived value) that were conceptualised as to having a significant relationship with the study’s dependent variable ( polygamous loyalty ). The retail chains (supermarkets) sector was used for a sample of 663 from a segment target population, 2.5 million members of loyalty programme from the five leading retail chains by turnover and sales volume (Nakumatt, Tuskys, Naivas, Uchumi and Ukwalla). Probability systematic sampling technique was employed. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection in Nairobi, Nakuru, Mombasa and Eldoret after being pre-tested. A selfadministrating question survey had a response rate of 83%. Measurement scale for study variables were adopted from similar studies and existing literature. The study was crosssectional, survey and quantitative in design. Multiple regressions’ p-value statistic was used as the test statistics for hypotheses testing. Key findings of the study were; loyalty programme service quality, stores’ brand attitude, price perceptions, service quality and customers perceived value had significant relationships with dependent variable of the study. Coefficient of determination R 2 of 0.62 this implied that at 95 % level of confidence 62% of the variation of Y can be explained by the independent variable. The regression model was found to be significant. The only statistically significant difference was that price, trust and alternative attractiveness were and both were dropped from the final study model. Cronbach alpha of .913 established the scales reliability. No significant differences were observed from the control variables of age, marital status, vehicle ownership and gender. However, the study established that average membership to retails chain’s loyalty schemes was 2.65. Finally, the present study was cross sectional that is all variables were measured at one point in time, thus essentially from a static perspective. It may be worthwhile to study polygamous loyalty over time, longitudinal approach to take into account the change of consumer preferences and change in consumer patronage behaviour. In conclusion, this study research developed support for the view that a firm’s relationship strategy ought to be embroiled into the organisation’s culture.