Mindfulness: Helps Curb Impulsive Buying Through Improving Self Control

“People spend 46.9%of their waking hours thinking about something else other than what they are doing and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy”(Killingsworth&Gilbert,2010).An antidote to this mind-wandering is“Mindfulness”;derived from ancient Buddhist tradition it refers to an open and non-judgmental form of awareness that is centered on present moment experiences considering both internal and external environment(Kabat-Zinn,2003).Existing research suggests mindfulness increases self-regulation of attention and self-control(Razza et al.,2015;Panek,Bayer,Cin,&Campbell,2015).Past research has also suggested mindfulness as a long-term solution to obesity and over-eating(Herpel et al.,2015;Bahl,Milne,Ross,&Chan,2013).This research suggests mindfulness as a way of improving self-control among consumers and contributes to making a more discerning customer.In my research,I suggest mindfulness as a way to improve self-control and reduce the susceptibility of a consumer to advertising effects,promotion price effects,and impulse buying behavior.We also suggest mindfulness as an intervention to reduce the over-spending problem in consumers.Elaboration likelihood model of persuasion(ELM)forms the theoretical basis of our research.ELM suggests two ways of information processing,central route,and peripheral route.In central route processing,customer evaluates communication by the logic of the argument presented.In peripheral processing,customer relies on peripherals like the attractiveness of source of information and other such peripherals to process information(Petty&Cacioppo,1984).The mindful customer is more likely to use central route than the peripheral route of information processing(Schramm&Hu,2014;Dong&Brunel,2006;Panek et al.,2015).Due to the difference in information processing,the mindful customer may not be influenced by peripheral cues of marketing like advertising and price promotions.We examine the differential effects of mindfulness vs.non-mindful consumers’response to marketing messages,through a series of experiments.This research also suggests mindfulness as a way to protect consumers against marketing enticements and improve their self-control against the harmful behavior of impulsive buying and overspending.The research also has implications for improving general happiness in the consumer.Since past research suggests,mind wandering leads to unhappiness in people(Mathew et al.,2010).

Investigation into the Customer Loyalty and Corporate Image Relationship

While extant of academic literature shows that service quality and customer satisfaction are key to building customer loyalty,given these equitable,“Does corporate image create loyalty”is the question this research probes.A primary research was conducted among the mobile communication subscribers.A total of 550 subscribers of mobile communication services in Mumbai,India were approached.Of this,400 complete and valid responses were collected.Findings suggest that corporate image and the service quality perceived by the customers have a strong relationship with customer loyalty.This implies that both external marketing and interactive marketing dimensions have a direct impact on building customer loyalty.Customer satisfaction was seen to be completely mediating the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty.This research provides a model that can help the managers of service organizations to enhance customer loyalty.Since corporate image positively impacts the customer loyalty along with service quality,it is important for the industry managers to devote equal attention and resources in delivering the promise as well building a good image of the company.Since the service quality impacts the corporate image,an important takeaway for the managers is to ensure that the actual offer matches promises made externally.Most of the previous studies investigating the antecedents of customer loyalty have either focused on the interactive marketing dimension or the external marketing dimension.This study examines the interplay of both the dimension and its impact on customer loyalty.