Determinants of multi-vendor mobile loyalty programs and their effects on user satisfaction and loyalty: An applied study in İstanbul

Loyalty programs are effectively used by retail and service providers in B2C for differentiating their products or services from competitors and obtaining satisfaction and loyalty. As competition and technology evolves, a growing interest for multi-vendor loyalty programs or coalition loyalty programs instead of stand alone loyalty programs. Development of mobile technologies provides multi- vendor mobile loyalty applications (mobile coalition programs) provide an opportunity to send consumers personalized program messages and campaigns. The aim of this thesis is investigating the effect of mobile coalition programs on consumer loyalty and satisfaction and identifying the factors influencing their adoption of mobile coalition programs with level of influence of each factor. The model developed for this thesis is based on uses and gratifications theory which is used for explaining of consumer behaviors on new technology media. Vast literature on consumer behaviors related loyalty programs and mobile technologies has been studied during study and a survey has been developed using related measures and 293 qualified surveys. The date have been analyzed with ANOVA and t-tests using SPSS and structural equation modeling analyses have been performed with the help of Smart PLS. Based on the results of analyses, personalization has effects on loyalty and satisfaction through other factors. In addition, utilitarian and hedonic values have positive effects on satisfaction of mobile coalition programs. Moreover, perceived privacy protection has a weak effect on satisfaction. This study has some constraints. First, in order to obtain enough data, two different application users were surveyed. In the future, different studies can be carried by each type of applications and compared with each other. Secondly, since users of these applications belong to mid-upper class segments, young generations could not be represented in this study using snowball sampling with easy reach method. Keeping in mind the distinctness of young generation's technology use and purchase decision, similar studies should be carried on with different age and income levels would increase generalizability of this study. Key words: multi-vendor loyalty programs, coalition loyalty programs, mobile coalition programs, mobile marketing, mobile promotion, utilitarian value, hedonic value, personalization, privacy, satisfaction, loyalty