ISCTE Business School, BRU-IUL, University Institute of Lisbon, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649–026 Lisbon, Portugal; Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152–3120, USA
Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Saulėtekio al. 11, LT-10223 Vilnius, Lithuania; BRU-IUL, University Institute of Lisbon, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649–026 Lisbon, Portugal
Understanding customer loyalty has been a growing concern for the services industry. In a context of increasing competitive pressures, such loyalty is seen as a key element in service companies’ success. Maintaining customer loyalty and identifying its underlying factors, however, are recognizably difficult to do. Grounded on the use of cognitive mapping techniques, this paper proposes a knowledge-based framework for the identification of the key determinants of customer loyalty, and the relationships among them. A step-by-step guide to the development of such a framework is presented, and illustrated through a practical application in the banking context. The resulting findings are supportive of the applicability of such methods for understanding customer loyalty, and the improvement of long-term relationships with customers. They are furthermore indicative of new ways in which knowledge can be incorporated into management activities to improve service outcomes. Some managerial implications of our contribution and avenues for future research are also reported.
Ferreira, F. A. F., Ferreira, J. J. M., A. S. Fernandes, C. I., Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, I., & S. Jalali, M. (2017). Enhancing knowledge and strategic planning of bank customer loyalty using fuzzy cognitive maps. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 23(6), 860-876. https://doi.org/10.3846/20294913.2016.1213200
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
