Abstract:

The current research investigates the influence of customer loyalty program’s soft and hard benefits on customer loyalty and customer relationship behavior by analyzing the collected data from aviation industry. It’s demonstrated that loyalty program’s soft and hard benefits have positive effects on both program loyalty and brand loyalty. More specifically, the soft benefits have more significant influence on brand loyalty than on program loyalty, whereas the hard benefits have more significant influence on program loyalty than on brand loyalty. Furthermore, brand loyalty positively influences share of wallet, while program loyalty positively influences repeat purchase. Besides, through brand loyalty, program loyalty can impact customer relationship behavior. A discussion of managerial implications is included in the end of the paper.

Key words: Soft Benefits, Hard Benefits, Customer Loyalty, Customer Relationship behavior