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RESEARCH PRODUCT

How to increase company loyalty: using relational variables and sustainable practices to segment the maritime transport sector

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description

Intense competition in goods transportation has highlighted theimportance of understanding customers’interests in order to designsuccessful relationship strategies. This study proposes, through asegmentation approach, to identify customer groups based on theirperceptions of sustainable practices and relational variables abouttheir main transport supplier. From a sample of 122 companies, amultiple correspondence analysis was carried out. The results showthat there are three groups of customer companies, which corres-pond to a high, low, and medium relational and sustainabilityapproach. The identified segments are also significantly different interms of time of operation in the maritime sector, type of activity,size, and age. This proposal provides valuable information at themanagerial level on the most influential attributes in the generationof loyalty in the B2B context of the maritime transport sector.