An integrative framework for customer switching behavior

Due to increased intensity of competition, retention of customers has become a major concern in many service industries. Although researchers have investigated customer switching intention and its influential factors, the complex structural mechanisms that reduce the likelihood of switching intention in the field of financial services, especially in the banking context, have remained understudied. This paper addresses the role of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer trust, and customer perceived value within a new conceptual model for customer switching intention in the banking services. In particular, the paper contributes to examine the potential moderating effect of switching barriers on the relationship between customer loyalty and switching intention as well as the relationship between satisfaction and switching intention of customers in the banking services. Data are collected through a questionnaire survey, and partial least squares-structural equation modeling is used for data analysis. Empirical results confirm the proposed model and hypotheses and show that switching barriers strengthen the impact of both customer loyalty and satisfaction on switching intention. The findings of this research offer a unified view of the structural relationships that contribute to reduced switching intention and provide more in-depth insights into the role of switching barriers in the banking context.     

Online loyalty and its interaction with switching barriers

The results of empirical research on online retail switching tendencies is quite mixed and only a few have specifically examined the presence, frequency or impact of switching barriers and switching inducements in the context of online services. Empirical evidence shows that there is “stickiness to certain sites” experienced by online customers and that they do less comparative shopping than might be expected. This paper conceptualises online switching behaviour as the interaction of barriers and inducements (both real and perceived) using Oliver׳s four-stage loyalty model. It also highlights the need to re-examine the concept of online loyalty and its interaction with switching barriers and inducements in the online context.     

The role of customer satisfaction in enhancing customer loyalty in Malaysian Islamic banks

This study examines the role of customer satisfaction in enhancing the loyalty of Muslim and non-Muslim customers in the Malaysian Islamic banking industry. Respondents are the customers (Muslim and non-Muslim customers) visiting the bank counters and have an account with Islamic banks. A total of 660 questionnaires were distributed, and 440 were returned. The results indicate that customer satisfaction has a statistically significant positive effect on customer loyalty and intentions to switch for Muslim and non-Muslim customers. However, there were significant differences in the effects of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty and intention to switch for Muslim and non-Muslim customers. The effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty and intention to switch is greater for the non-Muslim than the Muslim customers.     

The interrelationships among service quality,customer satisfaction,and customer loyalty: Examination of the fast-food industry

The purpose of this study was to use customers’ perspectives to develop a conceptual model for improving service quality and enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. The 197 samples were selected from customers of leading fast food franchise enterprises in Taiwan. The research results indicate that service quality positively influences customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Service quality positively influences customer loyalty through customer satisfaction. The research findings indicate that managers need to ensure they have efficient service quality to enhance customer satisfaction and customer loyalty levels.     

The role of commitment on the customer benefits–loyalty relationship in mobile service industry

The purpose of this study is to identify appropriate combinations between various types of commitment and benefit, to induce and enhance loyalty behaviours, such as customer retention, cross-selling, and customers' positive word-of-mouth, in a matured service market. The results show that functional and economic benefits have significant effects on customer retention through calculative commitment, while experiential and symbolic benefits significantly affect cross-selling and positive word-of-mouth via affective commitment. Normative commitment mediates the relationship between affective commitment and customer retention. The implications of these findings for loyalty management strategy related with service benefits and type of commitment are discussed. Limitations and recommendations for future research are also presented.     

间断性服务业顾客忠诚维度及其影响因素

This research empirically studies customer loyalty in the intermittent service industry with samples from the catering business in Beijing. Results show that customer loyalty in the intermittent service industry is composed of three causally related dimensions, namely cognitive loyalty, affective loyalty, and behavioral loyalty. Factors influencing customer loyalty in the intermittent service industry are customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer perceived value (CPV), in descending order of significance. These factors vary in their function mechanisms and effects on different dimensions of customer loyalty. __________ Translated and revised from Shuliang jingji jishu jingji yanjiu 数量经济技术经济研究 (The Journal of Quantitative & Technical Economics), 2007, (3): 91–101     

Service value and switching barriers: a personal values perspective

This research aims to investigate how customers, the key actors in a service relationship, perceive service value and switching barriers. The study is framed along the means-end-chain theory of personal values and theory of customer resources in the service-dominant logic. Hypotheses about the impact of personal values on customer value, switching barriers and customer loyalty were tested using structural equation modeling of survey data obtained from the health care and retail banking sectors in Vietnam. The results show that in both sectors, personal values have a significant impact on perceived process and outcome value as well as on perceived economic and relational switching barriers. Economic barriers were found to affect loyalty in the banking sector, in the same way that relational barriers affect loyalty in the health-care sector only. Loyalty in both sectors is influenced by process but not by outcome value. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The impacts of complaint efforts on customer satisfaction and loyalty

ABSTRACT

This study identifies the depth structure of customer complaint efforts and investigates the roles of each dimension in the structural relations with customer satisfaction and loyalty. Three dimensions of customer complaint efforts were identified, procedural effort, cognitive effort, and affective effort in the restaurant context. This study uses two subsamples to develop and validate the proposed three-dimension customer complaint efforts scale. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the first subsample of 211 participants. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied on the second subsample of 328 participants. It is found that customers’ physical/procedural and cognitive efforts exerted during the complaint resolution process compound their affective efforts, which further reduce customer satisfaction with the complaint process and erode customer behavioral and attitudinal loyalty. This study bridges the research gap gaps and provides managerial implications to help reduce customer complaint efforts and ensure positive customer behaviors.     

服务行业顾客重购意向的影响因素及其相互关系研究

本文探讨了转换壁垒、顾客感知价值、顾客满意对顾客重购意向的影响作用及其相互关系。以理发行业为研究对象,通过发放问卷收集数据,并运用结构方程分析软件进行了实证性检验,结果发现:顾客满意和顾客感知价值都对顾客重购意向具有直接显著影响;转换壁垒的不同维度对顾客重购意向的影响不同,社会利益对顾客重购意向产生积极的影响作用,转换成本不能增加顾客价值和顾客满意,但会对顾客产生锁定作用。对企业来说,管理者可以增加顾客满意和顾客感知价值来增加顾客重购意向,也可以通过提高顾客对转换壁垒的感知,从而对顾客起到锁定作用。     

The influence of customer-to-customer interactions and role typology on customer reaction

The service encounter is an important topic in service management. Although researchers have argued that customer-to-customer interactions may affect customers' evaluation of the service experience in service encounter contexts, the impact of customer-to-customer interaction on customer reaction has not been sufficiently studied. Consequently, the objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between customer-to-customer interactions, role typology and customer reaction. This research adopted questionnaires to investigate tourists traveling to foreign areas and concluded that the perception of customer-to-customer interaction incidents could be extracted into six factors. ‘Protocol and sociability incidents’ have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction; ‘malcontent incidents’ have a negative impact; ‘crude incidents’ and ‘malcontent incidents’ have significant negative impact on customer loyalty; and finally, the customer's role typology moderates the relationship between ‘protocol and sociability incidents’ and customer satisfaction.     

Effects of customer loyalty on customer entitlement and voiced complaints

The value of customer loyalty has been well documented by academicians and practitioners. Nevertheless, prior literature has paid little attention to the negative consequences of customer loyalty, for example, entitlement behaviors (e.g. requests for deeper discounts) and complaint behaviors (voicing dissatisfaction to the company). This research empirically examines the effects of customer loyalty on entitlement and voiced complaint behaviors in the context of Frequent Flyer programs in airline industry. Base on partial least squares-structural equation modeling, the results show that (1) customer loyalty has a positive effect on customer entitlement, which is the extent to which customers expect special treatment from the company; (2) the effect of customer loyalty on voiced complaints is fully mediated by customer entitlement; (3) perceived status of loyalty programs amplifies the entitlement behaviors of loyal customers, while tangible rewards of loyalty programs mitigate the entitlement behaviors of loyal customers. Theoretical and managerial implications are elaborated in the discussion section.     

The impact of high-performance work systems in the health-care industry: employee reactions,service quality,customer satisfaction,and customer loyalty

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the effects of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on employee attitude, service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in health-care organisations. The proposed research model was tested using structural equation modelling for hypotheses, based on data collected from 196 pairs of employee–customer respondents in four selected hospitals with more than 500 beds. The results indicate that hospitals can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through efficient operations, employee engagement, and service quality. One of the key findings of our study is that HPWS in health-care organisations influence employee reaction and service quality.     

The link between customer satisfaction and loyalty: the moderating role of customer characteristics

This research examines whether trust and commitment mediate the extent to which satisfaction influences loyalty, and whether such mediation is conditional on certain demographic or situational customer characteristics. The findings suggest that assuming homogeneity supports the general notion that trust and commitment partially mediate the extent to which satisfaction influences loyalty. FIMIX-PLS and PLS-MGA analyses substantiate that this mediation differs between two distinct customer segments. The two segments reveal heterogeneity in how trust and commitment partially mediate the link between satisfaction and loyalty. That is, the effect of satisfaction on loyalty is fully mediated by trust and commitment in the segment of customers with high education, whereas satisfaction is partially mediated by trust, but not by commitment, in the other segment of customers with less education.     

Managing customer loyalty through the mediating role of satisfaction in the DIY retail loyalty program

The focus of this study is the determinants of customer loyalty among members of retail loyalty programs. With data collected from a DIY loyalty program in a Central European country (a preliminary sample of 116 club members and a representative sample of 416 members), the study empirically tests the nature of the effect of the quality of personal interactions and perceptions of the quality of the loyalty program on customer loyalty through the mediating variable of customer satisfaction. Although the findings suggest that the quality of personal interactions bears no direct influence on members’ loyalty, it has a stronger influence on members’ satisfaction than the perceived quality of the loyalty program does. Influence on members’ loyalty is stronger from the mediating variable of customer satisfaction than from perceived quality of the loyalty program. This finding confirms the role of customer satisfaction as an important determinant of customer loyalty in the DIY setting. Offering a diagnostic tool in terms of selected direct and indirect determinants influencing customers’ loyalty, the paper also contributes to comprehension of loyalty programs’ effectiveness and members’ responses to the quality of loyalty programs, which contribution provides important implications for management and development of retail loyalty programs.     

基于顾客满意和顾客忠诚关系的市场细分方法研究

There exist different views and opinions on the links between customer satisfaction and loyalty. This paper suggests that the impact of customer satisfaction on loyalty varies across customers. This study choose the cell phone industry in China as an example and segmented customers with a novel method of clusterwise linear regression, based on the association between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Results revealed sample heterogeneity in relation to the two factors. The loyalty of some subgroups is positively related to satisfaction significantly, while that of other clusters is independent of satisfaction. Translated from Nankai Guanli Pinglun 南开管理评论 (Nankai Business Review), 2005, 8(5): 26–30     

An integrated model of customer social exchange relationship: the moderating role of customer experience

This article addresses how the customer social exchange relationship affects customer satisfaction and, in turn, repurchase intention. On the basis of the stimulus–organism–response model, this article argues that perceived organisational support, perceived customer support, and perceived service provider support influence customer satisfaction, which in turn affects repurchase intention. Furthermore, this study argues that perceived organisational support is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction for high-experience customers, whereas perceived customer support is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction for low-experience customers. A survey of 144 users of the foreign language institute on a university reveals that most of these hypotheses are supported.     

Sustainable growth for the self-employed in the retail industry based on customer equity,customer satisfaction,and loyalty

In Korea, traditional retail districts face a serious situation whereby businesses in downtown areas face collapsing as local population declines: resulting in a decrease in self-employed sales and a declining local economy. Traditional retailers use ambiguous accounting and are reluctant to use credit cards, and thus, the overall reliability of their customer data is low. This paper solves this problem by applying the concept of customer equity (CE). We conducted an empirical analysis through questionnaires to identify differences in CE between traditional and new retail formats. The questionnaire consisted of questions related to CE (value equity, brand equity, relation equity), satisfaction, loyalty, and demographic characteristics. CE and satisfaction were measured on a 5-point Likert scale. A total of 400 surveys were completed, resulting in 391 usable returns for analysis in this study. In the regression analysis between CE and customer satisfaction, both old and new retail firms showed statistically significant effects. In the traditional retail industry, value equity and brand equity were statistically significant, while relation equity were not.     

The role of customer loyalty as a brand extension purchase predictor

The paper explores the relationship between customer loyalty to the retail brand and the purchase of non-traditional products and services (NTPS) offered by grocery retailers with their private label (i.e. over-the-counter products, photo printing, mobile communication services and travel booking). Customer loyalty to the retail brand is measured through its behavioral and attitudinal components. A survey was conducted administering a questionnaire to 480 retail customers in two stores belonging to different retail grocers. A binary logistic regression was then applied using the buying of at least one NTPS as the dependent variable (1 = buy; 0 = no buy) and behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty as independent variables. Results show that attitudinal loyalty plays a significant role as buying predictor, but this depends on the NTPS offered. Theoretical and managerial implications are derived.     

Role of customer orientation in an integrative model of brand loyalty in services

This study attempts to model the development of brand loyalty by examining the simultaneous effects of customer orientation, perceived quality, brand associations, and satisfaction on brand loyalty. Data are used from retail banking and discount store retailing services to examine the direct and indirect effects of customer perceptions of customer orientation and quality on brand loyalty. It was found that customer orientation has a direct effect on brand loyalty and indirect effects through customer satisfaction, perceived quality, and brand associations as mediators. Further, perceived quality has a direct effect on brand loyalty as well as an indirect effect with satisfaction as a mediator. The results suggest that effective management of brand loyalty would require tracking of customer perceptions of a firm's customer orientation, quality and brand, in addition to measuring customer satisfaction.     

An integrative approach to relationship marketing,customer value,and customer outcomes in the retail banking industry: a customer-based perspective from Turkey

Given how important it is to provide superior value to customers and to maintain customer loyalty for a sustainable competitive advantage, the aim of this paper is to examine the relationships among relationship marketing components of – trust, competency, commitment, communication, and conflict handling, – relationship investment, relationship quality, perceived customer value, satisfaction and loyalty in an integrated framework in the Turkish retail banking industry. Unlike previous studies, this research extends the literature by analysing affective as well as cognitive dimensions in the same model with a holistic view by simultaneously examining the direct and indirect effects of the related concepts. The distinctive nature of this study is its evaluation of customer satisfaction and loyalty from the perspective of actual consumers. The research model was tested using data collected from 685 retail banking customers by applying structural equation modelling. The findings show that relationship marketing induces loyalty through relationship quality, customer value, and satisfaction, which are mainly provided by trust, communication, and relationship investment. Furthermore, relationship investment and relationship quality are the most important factors in the development of customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty. The emotional value dimension, which captures the affective aspects of perceived value, has the strongest effect on both satisfaction and loyalty.