The Moderator Effects of Switching Costs and Customer Expertise in the Satisfaction-Repurchase Intention Relationship for Mobile Telecommunication Services

Abstract

This study discusses and tests the moderator role of monetary, time, effort, social ties and relational switching costs and their interactions with customer expertise in the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship for mobile communication services. The authors use survey data of 516 customers from the three largest mobile communication providers in Vietnam. A moderated regression is used to test the hypotheses of both two- and three-way interaction effects on repurchase intention. The results show that monetary, time, effort and social ties switching costs have a negative moderating effect, but relational switching costs have a positive moderating effect on the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship. Furthermore, this study contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence supporting three-way interaction effects between satisfaction, switching costs and customer expertise on repurchase intention. Specifically, customer expertise reduces the moderating effects of social ties and relational switching costs on the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship.