Impact Of Perceived Service Quality On Customer Satisfaction And Brand Loyalty
[A CASE STUDY OF HONEYWELL FLOUR MILLS PLC]

The implications of this for all the parties is that if the business satisfies the customers' business expectations and relationship expectations, such a business will gain sales, market share and profit because of the loyalty of the customers' who will run to buy again, buying more and reduce marketing costs because the word of mouth promotion they will do about the firm, just because they love the company.
There is a big difference between creating a customer who is `satisfied' and one who is `loyal'. Customer satisfaction is earned by operating a business in-line with the basic expectations most customers have - good products, fair prices, convenient location etc. On the other hand, customer loyalty is earned by being prepared and empowered to do "whatever it takes" to meet the relationship expectations of the customers. Significant success depends on customers who are loyal the business.
The challenge is for the organizations to manage the relationship with each one of the customers so that they are so satisfied in their relationship with the firm that they are willing to promote the business through `word-of-mouth' promotion and evidence their loyalty with repeat sales.
How can organizations transfer this insight into their world? Organizations must understand that operational problems, if not addressed will lead to relationship problems. Be sure that people have both the training and the motivation needed to satisfy the `relationship; expectation of the customers. Anticipate that `problems' will happen and be prepared to address them before they occur.
In conclusion, business must have a recovery plan in place to manager 'moments-of-truth' successfully, resolve problems quickly and easily for all, empower the staff to act without delay and maintain the relationships that breed loyalty.
2.1.2    Brand Loyalty
Consumer satisfaction leads to brand loyalty. Oliver (1997) defined loyalty as a deeply held commitment to repeat purchases of a preferred product or service consistently in the future, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior. This definition focuses on behavior. From the behavioural view the definition and measurement of consumers loyalty are based upon a consumer's actual purchasing behavior the typical measurement of the proportion of the purchase for certain brands among the consumer's total purchases during a certain phase, but Jacob & Chestnut (1978) concluded that consistent purchasing as an indicator of loyalty could be invalid because of happenstance buying or a preference for convenience and that inconsistent purchasing could mask loyalty if consumers had brand loyalty to several brands in one product category. However the behavioural measurement could not distinguish consumer loyalty from repeatedly habitual purchase behavior. Therefore some researchers preferred to emphasize the attitudinal part of consumer loyalty on the basis of both behavior and attitude (Oliver 1997).
Brands vary in the amount of power and value they have in the market place. At one extreme are brands that are not known by most buyers. Then there are brands for which buyers have a fairly high degree of the brand awareness. Beyond this are brands with a high degree of brand acceptability. Then there are those that enjoy a high degree of brand preference. Finally there are brands that command a high degree of brand loyalty.
O'Reilly, proposed this test of brand loyalty: "My acid test … is whether a housewife, intending to buy Heinz tomato ketchup in a store, finding it to be out of stock will walk out of the store to buy it elsewhere".
Few customers are as brand-loyal as O'Reilly hopes Heinz's customers will be. Customers have varying degrees of loyalty to specify brands, stores and other entities. Buyers can be divided into four groups according to brand loyalty status.
-    Hard-Core Loyal:     Consumers who buy one brand all the time.
-    Split Loyal:        Consumers who are loyal to two or three bands.
-    Shifting Loyal:    Consumers who shift from one brand to another.
-    Switchers:        Consumers who show no loyalty to any brand.
nd increasing repeat business.