Understanding the psychological process underlying customer satisfaction and retention in a relational service

By Lin Guo, Jing Jian Xiao, Chuanyi Tang. 2009

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper reexamines the psychological process underlying the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer retention in a relational service context. It is based on a composite model of the attitude-behavior relation, which takes both attitude toward target and attitude toward behavior into account. Data were collected from a survey with a sample of 209 clients from a major credit counseling organization in the USA. Account data indicating those clients' actual retention behavior were matched with the survey data. A two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) procedure was employed to establish the construct validity and test the hypotheses. The results revealed that the effect of customer satisfaction on retention is mediated by the more proximal determinants of the actual retention behavior. Specifically, customer satisfaction has both direct and indirect effects on customers' attitudes toward remaining in the Debt Management Program (DMP), which is the proximal predictor of customer retention. In addition, satisfaction alone cannot guarantee customer retention. Customers' perceived behavioral control exerts direct effects on their intention to remain and retention.

Subfields: Information Systems and Management, Marketing, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fb37f068814441e0ff4a12af8d103c4e66933682

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Information Systems and Management

1. I. Ishaq

In Marketing

1. Ham Sunny
2. I. Ishaq
3. Jeong-Gil Choi
4. Eojina Kim
5. I. Yang
6. Heesup Han
7. Sunghyup Sean Hyun

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

1. I. Ishaq
2. Eojina Kim

Citations in the corpus

• Perceived value, service quality, corporate image and customer loyalty: Empirical assessment from Pakistan (2012, background): “determinants (Guo et al., 2009; Balabanis et al., 2006) whereas service quality has been considered as the key driver of loyalty (Lai et al.”
• The Roles of Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control in the Formation of Consumers’ Behavioral Intentions to Read Menu Labels in the Restaurant Industry (2013, methodology): “Approaching a variety of customers of various ages and both genders, used a technique from prior social science research that recruits volunteers from companies, universities, and community clubs (e.g., Guo et al., 2009; McKay-Nesbitt et al., 2011).”