Customer Loyalty Framework of Telecommunication Service Market

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship among customer satisfaction, customer trust, switching cost, and customer loyalty in mobile telecommunication service market of Pakistan. Built on the review of pertinent literature a research framework is developed based on the mediation of customer trust and moderation of switching cost on the relationship of customer satisfaction with customer loyalty. The data were collected from 515 customers in mobile telecommunication service market of Pakistan through convenience sampling. Correlation matrix and ordinary least squares regression analyses are used to determine the relationship among the variables. The findings confirm the framework that customer trust partially mediates the relationship of customer satisfaction with customer loyalty. Switching cost has no moderating effect in determining the relationship of customer satisfaction with customer trust and customer loyalty in mobile telecommunication service market of Pakistan. This study addresses the importance of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer trust, and switching cost for the mobile telecommunication service firms. The findings suggest that the firms should enhance customer satisfaction in order to gain customer trust and customer loyalty. The significant relationships between the variables suggest that the research framework is applicable to the firms of mobile telecommunication service market of Pakistan. Further, this is probably among the first studies which look at mobile telecommunication service market of Pakistan in context of customer satisfaction, customer trust, customer loyalty, and switching cost. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that customer satisfaction and customer trust are the key determinants in predicting customer loyalty.