Customer Preference

Research into this area of consumer behavior has brought understanding to some of the major issues with standard customer satisfaction research. Most importantly, we have come to realize that high customer satisfaction does not assure continued customer preference. Satisfaction research over the past demonstrates that high satisfaction scores, while a measure of corporate performance on a set of important criteria, do not adequately explain the composition of preference formation and therefore often serve as insufficient predictors of sustained preference or what is normally referred to as customer loyalty. Loyalty as a concept has also shown itself to be difficult to define. Like beauty, loyalty is truly in the eye of the beholder. We understand there are different types and degrees of loyalty and some of these are not appropriate in describing the relationship between a consumer and a company.