The causal relationship between aspects of customer capital to improve customer relationship management and increase customers’ loyalty (case study: food industry of Jey industrial town in Isfahan)

This study aimed to investigate the causal relationships between aspects of customer capital to improve customer relationship management and increase customer’s loyalty. In this regard, by providing a conceptual framework including different aspects of customer capital (i.e. customer targeting, ability to identify customer's need, construction and management of customer information system, customer service capability, customer’s loyalty, and customer relationship management) and using statistical tests like structural equation modeling and Friedman test through SPSS and Lisrel software, hypotheses were examined. This was an applicable research in terms of its purpose , and a descriptive-survey research in terms of its methodology. Data were collected through library resources and field resources using questionnaire. Questionnaire validity and reliability were confirmed through content validity using supervisor professor’s opinion and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.81), respectively. Statistical population consisted of customers of all marketing and sales managers of food industry of Jey industrial town in Isfahan, which was a limited population (80 people), therefore sampling was not required and questionnaires were distributed among all population through census method. Structural equation modeling results indicated the significant effect of customer targeting, the ability to identify customers’ need, construction and management of customer information system and customer service capability on customers’ loyalty. The results of Friedman test indicated that the most and the least mean ranks related to identify customer need, and construction and management of customer information systems well as customer relationship management, respectively.