Abstract:

The aim of this research is determined as investigating the factors affecting brand loyalty of physicians who are accepted as the most important customer segment among three type of customer profiles in Turkish pharmaceutical industry. Because of increasing competition in recent years, being the most important factor in determining the position of companies in the market, brand loyalty concept is gaining more and more importance in pharmaceutical industry and the marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies are positioned on affecting the prescription preferences of physicians who are accepted as the primary customers. By this respect, first a compherensive literature review was conducted on brand trust, perceived quality and customer satisfaction dimensions which were determined to affect brand loyalty at most as the result of in depth interviews and dynamics of pharmaceutical industry. Afterwards, a conceptual research model was developed, proposed hypotheses of the model were tested on survey data collected from physicians who is the most important customer group in Turkish pharmaceutical industry. The factor and regression analyses’ results revealed that brand loyalty was affected by perceived quality at highest level, followed by brand trust and customer satisfaction consecutively. According to the results of Anova and t test analyses, brand trust, customer satisfaction, perceived quality and brand loyalty dimensions didn’t show any differences between local and foreign pharmaceutical companies’ brand groups, while the institutional groups of physicians showed differences. The conclusion of research is expected to give important contributions to brand management literature and pharmaceutical companies’ competition strategies and marketing activities.

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