Strengthening the satisfaction loyalty link: the role of relational switching costs

Heiner Evanschitzky (), Valentina Stan () and Liane Nagengast ()
Additional contact information
Heiner Evanschitzky: Alliance Manchester Business School
Valentina Stan: ESSCA School of Management
Liane Nagengast: University of St

Marketing Letters, 2022, vol. 33, issue 2, No 8, 293-310

Abstract: Abstract The extant retail research has placed much emphasis on understanding customer switching and the concept of switching costs (SCs). However, the empirical evidence is inconclusive with respect to the moderating role of SCs in general and relational switching costs (RSCs) in particular. Therefore, this research focuses on the moderating role played by SCs on the satisfaction-loyalty link. Specifically, our study attempts to clarify the nonlinear moderating effect of RSCs. Furthermore, we investigate RSCs in greater depth, considering their two dimensions, brand relationship loss costs (BRLCs), and personal relationship loss costs (PRLCs). We find that there is an optimal level of BRLC whereas increasing PRLCs decreases the impact of satisfaction on loyalty in a linear manner, calling for a more nuanced assessment of this type of SC in future studies. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of SCs as a retention strategy.

Keywords: Switching costs; Customer satisfaction; Loyalty; Relational switching costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11002-021-09590-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:33:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11002-021-09590-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... etailsPage=societies

DOI: 10.1007/s11002-021-09590-8

Access Statistics for this article

Marketing Letters is currently edited by Joel Steckel and Peter Golder

More articles in Marketing Letters from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().