Internal Marketing and Customer Loyalty: A Dyadic Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of internal marketing on customer loyalty and the mediating role of job satisfaction, affective commitment & organizational citizenship behaviour in their relationship. The analysis is based on a dyadic data set of front-end service employees and customers. It involves responses provided by the 150 dyads collected through quantitative self-administered questionnaires from telecommunication organizations of Pakistan. Findings demonstrate that internal marketing has a positive significant effect on job satisfaction, affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, the theoretical model shows that organizational citizenship behaviour, affective commitment and job satisfaction act as mediators between internal marketing and customer loyalty. This study implies that IM is very beneficial and effective approach towards the customer positive behavioural outcomes such as customer loyalty.

Internal marketing, employee customer‐oriented behaviors, and customer behavioral responses

“…The observation of the positive linkage between internal marketing and customer relationship continuity is consistent with Awan et al. () finding that internal marketing catalyzes customer loyalty. The effect was evaluated with sample of banking firms in Vietnam, while Awan et al.…”

“…The effect was evaluated with sample of banking firms in Vietnam, while Awan et al. () tested the effect in telecommunication companies in Pakistan. Similarly, our finding of the internal marketing–purchase intention relationship is congruent with Gelade's and Young's () observation that internal marketing positively affects sales achievement.…”

“…Concretely, a prominent research stream of internal marketing consists of the studies examining attitudinal mediators between internal marketing and external customer‐related outcomes. Recently, a few studies have garnered their interest in behavioral mediators, but this group of studies centered on organizational citizenship behavior that includes employee behaviors directed at other organizational members like coworkers (Awan et al., ; Ghorbani & Mostafavi, ; SeyedJavadin, Rayej, Yazdani, Estiri, & Aghamiri, ). To our knowledge, only one welcome study by Bansal et al.…”

“…To our knowledge, there has been little research dedicated to these specific variables in internal marketing research. Although some studies’ findings of customer loyalty (Awan et al., ; Ganjavi, Farahani, Hoseinabadi, & Rouzbehani, 2015) and realized sales (Gelade, & Young, ) reflect, in part, relationship continuity and purchase intention, respectively, prior studies either evaluated customer general responses (i.e., customer loyalty as an aggregate of attitudinal, behavioral loyalty) or studied customer‐related responses at organizational level (i.e., realized sales as an outcome of organizational performance). A focus on customer relationship continuity, purchase intention, and WOM—the pursuit of this study—is noteworthy because it offers an in‐depth insight of the effectiveness of internal marketing.…”

“…In the sphere of services marketing, satisfying employees has been accentuated as a critical factor to customer service satisfaction (Awan, Siddiquei, Jabbar, Abrar, & Baig, 2015). Customers tend to be more satisfied and intend to return to the companies whose employees are happy and do not leave the company at a rapid pace.…”