Balance of Customer Loyalty, Satisfaction and Logistics Cost: Practical Guidelines for Logistics Firms

Based on 96 completed surveys from logistics customers, the author conducted a analysis between customer loyalty and logistics cost in evaluating the service quality attributes. It was found that the top gaps were all related to the functional quality (friendly interactions between customers, and logistics firms), not technical quality (e.g., the extra services provided, better price, or preferred rules and regulations). This study offered an approach to balance the logistics cost, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty under acceptable service quality for logistics practitioners. Switching barriers are also discussed to manifest that customer loyalty enhancement is not the only way to keep the customer from switching to logistics competitors.