Investigating the antecedents of customer loyalty to broadband network services in Taiwan

Abstract

With the increase in bandwidth of access networks in recent years, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) provides most residential consumers with rapid access media connection to the Internet for Web-based activities, such as surfing website, online shopping, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). In an attempt to evaluate existing consumer's loyalty after adopting broadband services in the mature market, this study investigates the influence of overall service quality, service value, satisfaction and behavioral intentions on loyalty to an incumbent operator. To test the hypothesized model, data are collected from 627 residential subscribers using ADSL services in Taiwan and a two-step approach of LISREL analyses is employed to evaluate the fitness of the research model. The results indicate that overall service quality, service value and satisfaction have a direct positive effect on consumers' behavioral intentions and, in turn, influence consumer's loyalty. In addition, satisfaction plays a role as an important mediator that can directly contribute to both the consumers' behavioral intentions and their loyalty; however, service value perceived by consumers has no significant impact on loyalty.