Types of Loyalty Part 1

The market and business research world uses a lot of different terminology. These terms are generally universally accepted by all researchers, so that each can discuss the same topic without requiring they define their terms each time to avoid confusion. Yet in some areas, the terms used are not always clear.

One example is in the field of loyalty, where very few researchers have any agreed upon terms as to how to describe the different types of loyal customers or employees. Take this research paper from a graduate student at the United States Sports Academy. Near the bottom of the abstract, you can see the three terms used to describe customer loyalty for fitness club customers: Normative Affective Investment Normative was described as going to the gym because "it was normal." Going to the gym had become part of their routine, so they were used to the idea of getting up every morning and heading to the same gym at the same time.

Affective loyalty is emotional loyalty, and would imply that the individual has an emotionally loyal attachment to the business. Investment loyalty is the act of continuing at the gym because of the amount of money they have already poured into the same gym. This type of loyalty breakdown relates to the Meyer and Allen's model of commitment they used to describe employee loyalty.

However, in their model, normative loyalty refers to allegiance due to obligation. Employees or customers feel like they owe the company, and so they continue to give back despite other options available. In the Meyer and Allen model, there is also "continuance commitment" which would be the economic or social problems that would occur should the employee (or to a lesser extent, the customer) leave the company.

Having this many terms for loyalty can make loyalty confusing. However, one of the reasons there are so many different terms is because loyalty – like satisfaction – can differ between businesses. It depends on what the products are, the needs for the products, the need for the company, the number of competitors, and so on – all of these create mindsets that are lumped into groups like "satisfaction" and "loyalty." So over the next few articles, we'll take a look at some of the terms people use to describe loyalty to hopefully clarify the way loyalty is understood by those new to the research.