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Purpose: To investigate the effect of service personalization on loyalty, and to measure some of the psychological dynamics of the process.Methodology: structural equation modeling.Findings: We show that the effect of service personalization on loyalty exists, but that the effect is not all direct. Personalization works through improving service satisfaction and trust. Personalization and improved communication act together in such a way that they account for the variance in loyalty that would be otherwise explained by corporate image.Research limitations: Data, though comprising a very large probability sample, are from one economic sector in one European country.Practical implications: Service personalization is a powerful way to retain customers in its own right.In addition, our other results show that personalized service can partially replace the effects of communication and corporate image on loyalty. This argues that personalized service can be a powerful addition to mass communications. Originality/value:Growing conventional wisdom in marketing argues that customer loyalty is responsible for large fractions of the profits of many service businesses. Constructs such as satisfaction, trust, customer collaboration, customer interaction, firm image, personalization, learning relationships, and so forth, have all been proposed as intermediate objectives, or as tools to buildloyalty. Yet, to date, only some of these constructs have been measured and shown to be related to loyalty. This paper fills a portion of the empirical gap by showing that service personalization, indeed, affects loyalty, above and beyond the other explanatory variables.

Statistical power and effect size are not considered sufficiently by marketing researchers. The authors discuss how better attention to these two factors can improve the planning, execution, and reporting of marketing and consumer research. Suggestions are offered about how to increase effect size and improve statistical power.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Despite the strong intuitive appeal of personalization (through employees or, increasingly, through the use of software applications), relatively little is known about its role in managing service relationships. This study aims to explore the burgeoning area of technology-mediated personalization and its effects on customer commitment to service relationships. Design/methodology/approach -A theoretical perspective based on integrated reviews of service research and relationship marketing is developed and used to guide the exploration of personalization effects with qualitative data. Findings -Personalization is not always good enhancement to service: its effects have contingencies and vary across the categories. Continuity personalization seems to be a promising area for researchers and practitioners.Research limitations/implications -Personalization effects should be rigorously studied. Continuity personalization seems to offer a promising area for future research. Practical implications -The intuitive belief about personalization is probably misleading. Whether or not personalization strategies help service relationships depends on their capacity to generate positive inferences on dimensions of performance, benevolence, and value provision. Out of the three types, continuity personalization offers a promising strategic option for managing ongoing customer relationships if well implemented. Originality/value -The counter-intuitive insights into personalization effects on relationship continuity address issues of theoretical and practical concerns.

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