La fidélité prototypique : une approche de la fidélité perçue par l'auto-catégorisation

Perception that the client has of his own brand loyalty has not been addressed in the marketing literature. This research attempts to overcome this limit in four ways: (1) demonstrating that customer’s perceived loyalty can be approached through Self-Categorization as brand Loyal (SCL) corresponding to a subjective evaluation of one’s similarity to a prototyped loyal customer (one’s perceived typicality); (2) identifying the attributes of the prototyped loyal customer organized around six factors: Confidence, Continuity, Information, Participation, Identity, Exclusivity - the first dimensions being more strongly associated to loyalty ; (3) studying the strong influence of CSF on customer expectations and future intentions and (4) demonstrating that it is more the CSF than the true contribution of a customer which determines the perceived legitimacy of benefits received from the brand.The integration of CSF in customer segmentation appears to be as an efficient tool to improve the acceptance and in turn the effectiveness of relationship marketing efforts.