An investigation into service quality–customer loyalty relationship: the moderating influences

Abstract

The relationship between service quality and customer loyalty is a vastly researched marketing phenomena which have been assessed and established across different industries. Service quality plays a prominent role in determining customers’ status of loyalty (Boulding et al., J Mark Res 30:7–27, 1993; Parasuraman et al., J Retail 67:420–450, 1991; Zeithaml et al., J Mark 60:31–46, 1996) as it is the primary factor that affects chances of customers’ revisit or repurchase from the company. Being a significant contributor in customer loyalty formation, service quality also gets influenced by certain other factors which exert moderate effects on its relationship with customer loyalty. The present study intends to expose the service quality–customer loyalty relationship in life insurance industry and offers further insights into the aforementioned relationship by assessing the moderating influences of trust, commitment, corporate image and switching costs, the variables that the literature established as important factors in determining customer loyalty. A research model encompassing the direct association of service quality with customer loyalty and the possible moderating variables whose presence affects this association is proposed and empirically tested on the basis of responses from life insurance customers.