The moderating role of switching barriers on customer loyalty in the life insurance industry

In recent service management literature, researchers have incorporated switching barriers as an important potential influential factor on customer loyalty and found that the impact of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty might vary under different switching barrier conditions. However, switching barriers and their importance in the life insurance service contexts have received little in-depth attention. This study aims to examine the impact of switching barriers as a potential moderator on the complex interrelationships among the antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction in the life insurance service context. The main findings of this study show that the switching barriers do have a moderating effect and play a crucial role in winning customer loyalty.     

Key account relationship management: the moderating effects of relationship duration and transaction volume

This study investigates the impact of three relational benefits (i.e. financial benefits, human interaction benefits, preferential treatment benefits) on switching barriers, customer satisfaction, and behavioral loyalty for key accounts in the context of the air express delivery industry in Taiwan. Empirical results indicate that relational benefits impact switching barriers, switching barriers influence customer satisfaction and loyalty, and customer satisfaction effects loyalty. Findings also confirm most of the hypothesized moderating effects for relationship duration and transactional volume on the relationship between relational benefits and switching barriers. Specifically, long-term key accounts place greater emphasis on the human interaction and preferential treatment benefits. Key accounts that have less established relationships based on the length of business relationship place more importance on financial benefits. Financial benefits were found to have a positive influence on switching barriers only for low annual transactional volume clients, while both human interaction benefits and preferential treatment benefits have positive effects for both low and high transactional volume key accounts.     

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 satisfaction on customer retention in mobile phone market

This study examines the determinants of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the Peruvian mobile phone market. Based in a survey to 1259 customers, Multinomial Logit and GSEM estimations show how determinants of customer satisfaction can be assessed when satisfaction is measured through ordered categorical data. The results confirm that in mobile phone market Customer Satisfaction influences strongly on Customer Loyalty, and in turn Loyalty is an important determinant of Customer Retention. In contrast with previous literature, this study identified the differentiated influence of diverse factors on positive and negative customer satisfaction categories. Indeed while results show that quality of service assessments made by customers had a significant impact on both negative and positive customer satisfaction categories; assessments of other service attributes like customer care, information on tariffs and plans and billing clarity, only showed a significant statistical influence on positive categories of customer satisfaction. Similar asymmetrical results were found with regard to other economic, socioeconomic and geographical determinants of customer decisions. As well, an analog effect is also observed in the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty, where only positive satisfaction assessments helps to explain the loyalty of users. Finally, results show that while satisfaction can be identified as a powerful cause of CR, switching barriers did not deter more demanding customers to switch to alternative carriers, suggesting that recent pro-competition regulatory reforms implemented in Peru contributed to reduce these barriers to competition in mobile markets.     

The Divergent “Loyalty” Behaviors of a Captive Consumer

This research investigates situations where consumers display divergent loyalty behaviors. Study I qualitatively identifies and classifies word-of-mouth spreading behaviors of captive loyalists. The results reveal that, despite repurchase behaviors, captive loyalists spread mostly negative word-of-mouth. Study II quantitatively investigates four separate loyalty behaviors of captive loyalists. The results confirm that these consumers are likely to stay when dissatisfied, and allocate a significant share of their wallet to the provider whilst spreading negative word-of-mouth. The simultaneous existence of opposing loyalty behaviors has significant implications for erecting switching barriers and for applying customer loyalty metrics.     

Does Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Customer Loyalty in the Taiwan Insurance Sector? The role of Corporate Image and Customer Satisfaction

This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty, and examines the role of corporate image and customer satisfaction. The empirical results indicate a positive effect of economic and legal corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty, as well as a partial mediating effect of customer satisfaction between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty. Moreover, this study identifies the moderating effect of corporate image between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty. The results of this study are useful to the life insurance sector for enhancing their customer loyalty and service marketing strategy.     

The Influence of Environmental Management Systems on Financial Performance: A Moderated-Mediation Analysis

This study utilizes hierarchical regression analysis to explore how environmental management systems (EMSs) influence financial performance through customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and the moderating effects of switching cost. The originality of the present research is to unpack the “black box” through which a firm can profit from EMSs. The empirical results indicate that EMSs have positive and significant impacts on customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and financial performance. In addition, switching cost negatively and significantly moderates the relationship between EMSs and customer satisfaction, but does not significantly moderates the relationship between EMSs and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that customer satisfaction and customer loyalty partially mediate the relationship between EMSs and financial performance. Our findings highlight that customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and switching cost play important roles for a firm to profit from EMSs.     

Consumers’ relationships with brands and brand communities – The multifaceted roles of identification and satisfaction

This study integrates consumer-brand identification and customer satisfaction as core relationship drivers to study their interrelationships as well as the effects on customer loyalty and word-of-mouth communication. Considering multiple interacting targets of identification in brand communities, the empirical study unfolds the multifaceted, context-specific relevance of identification and satisfaction: While the effect of identification on brand loyalty is mediated by customer satisfaction, satisfaction has no significant effect on community loyalty. Moreover, brand communities are particularly useful for gaining new customers, whereas no increase in brand loyalty could be found. Managers are generally advised to specify constructs of interest related to different relevant targets of identification.     

Determinants of switching intention in the electricity markets - An integrated structural model approach

This study adopts an integrated approach and combines the theory of planned behavior and push-pull theory to unpack the antecedents of customer switching intention in a contextual setting (Western Australia) that has a regulated electricity market. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data from a survey of 405 retail electricity consumers, which reveals that perceived relative price, electronic word-of-mouth, customer-based reputation of a service provider, past switching experience, and subjective norms significantly influence attitude toward switching and switching intention. Our findings contribute to the literature on retail electricity markets by showing the importance of customer-based reputation and positive electronic word-of-mouth in shaping consumers’ attitude and intention toward switching their electricity providers. The results also provide insights for electricity retailers to design better offerings and control customer switching.     

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.     

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.     

Customer perceived value,satisfaction, and loyalty: The role of switching costs

It is a marketplace reality that marketing managers sometimes inflict switching costs on their customers, to inhibit them from defecting to new suppliers. In a competitive setting, such as the Internet market, where competition may be only one click away, has the potential of switching costs as an exit barrier and a binding ingredient of customer loyalty become altered? To address that issue, this article examines the moderating effects of switching costs on customer loyalty through both satisfaction and perceived‐value measures. The results, evoked from a Web‐based survey of online service users, indicate that companies that strive for customer loyalty should focus primarily on satisfaction and perceived value. The moderating effects of switching costs on the association of customer loyalty and customer satisfaction and perceived value are significant only when the level of customer satisfaction or perceived value is above average. In light of the major findings, the article sets forth strategic implications for customer loyalty in the setting of electronic commerce. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Affect versus Cognition in the Chain from Perceived Quality to Customer Loyalty: The Roles of Product Beliefs and Experience

To support managerial practice and help improve analytical models in retailing, this article extends the literature on processes in the psychological chain of effects from perceived quality to customer loyalty by making three original and fundamental contributions. Based on multilevel structural equation modeling of consumer data from Bolivia, Japan, and the USA, it shows that product beliefs mediate this chain of effects and that cross-over effects connect rational and emotional processes within this chain. Moreover, it elucidates conditions moderating the strength of these emotional and rational processes. Breadth of experience positively moderates the mediating role of product beliefs. Relative price positively moderates the effect of hedonic product beliefs on affective customer satisfaction and negatively moderates the effect of utilitarian product beliefs on cognitive customer satisfaction. Time since purchase positively moderates the role of emotional processes and negatively moderates the role of rational processes. The moderating effects of sensory, affective, and intellectual brand experience support the predictive validity of the research model. Further analyses illuminate how social recognition, customer value co-creation through product usage patterns, and product-service bundling affect product beliefs, as well as how affective and cognitive customer satisfaction influence positive word-of-mouth.     

Antecedents and outcomes of brand love: the mediating role of brand loyalty

The purpose of this study was to propose and test an integrative conceptual model which incorporates experience-based (i.e. brand experience) and non-experience-based (i.e. self-congruity) antecedents and behavioural outcomes (i.e. brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth) of brand love. The conceptual model and proposed hypotheses of the study are analysed with a sample of 361 consumers by using a structured survey as a data collection instrument. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the hypothesized linkages among the constructs. The findings of the study demonstrate strong associations between both experience-based and non-experience-based antecedents and brand love, and between brand love and its behavioural outcomes. This study also corroborates the mediating role of brand loyalty on the impact of brand love on positive word-of-mouth. This study is expected to contribute to the field of brand management by investigating the simultaneous impact of experience-based and non-experienced-based antecedents on brand love and the mediating role of brand loyalty on the association between brand love and positive word-of-mouth, which has not been addressed in the previous literature.     

Share of wallet in retailing: the effects of customer satisfaction, loyalty cards and shopper characteristics

In retailing, consumers typically patronize multiple outlets. Thus, an important issue is why consumers vary in how they divide their purchases across outlets and how outlets can get a greater share of consumer expenditures. Two potential avenues for increasing customer share are to raise customer satisfaction, and increase repeat purchase through loyalty cards. This study examines the effects of customer satisfaction and loyalty cards as well as consumer characteristics on customer share spent on the primary grocery store. The findings suggest that customer satisfaction has a positive, albeit modest, effect on share while consumer economic shopping orientation has a negative direct effect on share. The economic orientation of shoppers, their felt importance of a personal relationship with store personnel, and the level of their aggregate purchase volume moderate the effect of satisfaction on customer share. Finally, the results provide mixed support for the impact of loyalty cards on customer behavior.     

A New Look at the Antecedents and Consequences of Relationship Quality in the Hotel Service Environment

Abstract

As economic conditions improve, hotels are investing in new ways to improve service quality and perceived value that hopefully will lead to better customer satisfaction and loyalty. This study took a new look, with newly developed scales, at the antecedents and consequences of relationship quality in the hotel service environment to shed new light on the factors hotels have to deal with to achieve their objective of satisfied and loyal customers. Using a structural equation model, it was determined that the tangible and intangible factors of perceived value, timeliness, and hotel facilities are antecedents of hotel quality. Hotel quality, subsequently, is a determinant of both customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, consistent with previous research, customer satisfaction is not a guarantee of customer loyalty.     

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.     

Corporate social responsibility: Findings from the Chinese hospitality industry

The study investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on consumers’ attitudinal and behavioral responses, factors closely related to a firm's social and economic performance, using data from 451 customers of three hotels. We also test the universality of such impact across various consumer groups. Results show that CSR positively affects perceived corporate reputation and customer satisfaction, which in turn, significantly affect customer commitment and behavioral responses (i.e., loyalty intentions and word-of-mouth). Perhaps more importantly, the role of CSR is not universal across consumer groups. Particularly, consumer income seems to moderate the relationship between CSR and perceived reputation. Specifically, the positive effect of CSR on perceived corporate reputation is more salient among people with a higher income. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Customer Relationship Management of the Information Education Services Industry in Taiwan: Attributes,Benefits and Relationship

Measuring the key attributes of the services provided is necessary, but it is not sufficient for the improvement of customer satisfaction. This study develops and empirically tests a model examining the relations among attributes, benefits, customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, and customer behavioural loyalty, as relationship duration and product involvement are used as controllable variables in a marketing system. Based on samples collected from PC School, one of the most renowned information education services in Taiwan, the results show that relationship duration does have a positive influence on customer behavioural loyalty, and product involvement has positive effects on customer satisfaction. The findings also suggest that customers purchase information education services with specific benefits, all of which come with corresponding attributes, and hence result in dissimilar levels of customer satisfaction and homologous behavioural sequences.     

Creating Ultimate Customer Loyalty Through Loyalty Conviction and Customer-Company Identification

Why do customers’ attitudinal loyalty fail to predict their behavior? More importantly, what creates such latent loyalty? We attempt to answer these questions by examining the antecedents and outcomes of loyalty conviction, which represents the inherent strength/uncertainty in a customer’s attitudinal loyalty. For deep attitudinal loyalty (i.e., conative loyalty), the findings suggest that customer satisfaction creates loyalty held without conviction. In contrast, customer-company identification creates loyalty held with conviction. Importantly, attitudinal loyalty without conviction loses its ability to predict behavior when situational and competitive barriers are present whereas loyalty with conviction maintains a predictive relationship with behavior despite the same barriers.