LOYALTY STRATEGY AS BUSINESS PRACTICES FOR CONQUERING CUSTOMERS

Abstract

Nowadays, adopting loyalty programs through relationship marketing has become an important strategy for organizations. The purpose of the article is to analyze business strategies regarding the importance and use of customer loyalty programs. In this way, bibliographic sources were used, such as books and scientific articles. As a research method, data collect were made with managers from cities in the interior of Paraná through the application of 107 questionnaires, sent via Google Forms. Among the variables analyzed, the main findings point out that 91.2% agree that the company seeks to have a good relationship with its customers, a fact that corroborates that only 9.8% consider that the company lost customers that were previously loyal. About 78.4% affirm that the company is aware of the importance of customer loyalty, although 65.7% claim that they have loyalty strategies, and the use of social networks to win new customers is made by 64.7% of managers , an important fact due to the constant growth of communication technologies. On the other hand, 59.8% agree that the company has loyalty and relationship programs, and 40.2% agree that the company has effective control over who are the loyal customers. As for indicators with less agreement, only 33.3% mention that the company trains employees, and only 26.5% have a CRM system, an indispensable tool to streamline processes and help with customer management. As a result, this research made major contribution to greater knowledge about customer loyalty and how it can be important for positive results in organizations.