“Perceived Seller Loyalty” for “Customer Loyalty”, Does “Tat for Tat” Work Like “Tit for Tat”?

Abstract

The norm of reciprocity or repayment in kind, is arguably one of the most prevalent social rules that governs and keeps the balance of the social relations for a long time. At the individual level, it confirms the need to reciprocate, promotes the predictability, and boosts the expectations. Given the importance of customer loyalty to the company, researchers have been trying to identify the antecedents of this construct. Loyalty, by nature, is to be reciprocated between two parties (Solomon 1992). And by reciprocating, the two parties are expected to exchange things of equivalent value, i.e., either “tit for tat”, or “tat for tat”. It is difficult to maintain the relationship, in which the loyalties are asymmetrically exchanged between parties. Yet none of the prior research in B2C identifies “seller loyalty” as an antecedent of customer loyalty. Based on the very simple social exchange rule, the norm of reciprocity, a few simple questions are raised in this study. The first one is, whether the perceived seller loyalty is a potential antecedent of the customer loyalty? Second, what constitutes the seller loyalty from the perspective of the customer? And the purpose of this study is to answer these questions.