Customer switching behavior in online services: An exploratory study of the role of selected attitudinal, behavioral, and demographic factors
Tóm tắt
With a quarter of a billion Internet users worldwide and estimates of more than one-half billion people online by the year 2003, growth in the online services industry has been exponential. With this growth has come concern about customer “churn”, a concern that parallels issues of customer switching behavior in services industries in general. This manuscript reports results of two field studies, conducted among two randomly selected samples of online service users, that investigate the degree to which selected behavioral (information that customers used when making the online service decision, their service usage), attitudinal (risk-taking propensity), and demographic (income and education) factors are effective in discriminating between continuers and switchers. The research in Study 1 is replicated in Study 2 and extended to consider additional attitudinal factors of satisfaction and involvement. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Alba, Joseph W. and J. Wesley Hutchinson. 1987. “Dimensions of Consumer Expertise.”Journal of Consumer Research 13 (March): 411–454.
— 1994. “Cross-Category Variation in Customer Satisfaction and Retention.”Marketing Letters 5 (1): 19–30.
— 1996. “Customer Satisfaction and Price Tolerance.”Marketing Letters 7 (3): 265–274.
Anderson, Eugene W. and Mary Sullivan. 1993. “The Antecedents and Consequences of Customer Satisfaction for Firms.”Marketing Science 12 (Spring): 125–143.
Armstrong, J. Scott and Terry S. Overton. 1977. “Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys.”Journal of Marketing Research 14 (August): 399–403.
Bansal, Harvir S. and Shirley F. Taylor 1999. “The Service Provider Switching Model (SPSM): A Model of Consumer Switching Behavior in the Services Industry.”Journal of Service Research 2 (November): 200–218.
Beatty, Sharon E. and Scott M. Smith. 1987. “External Search Effort: An Investigation Across Several Product Categories.”Journal of Consumer Research 1:83–95.
Berning, Carol A. and Jacob Jacoby. 1974. “Patterns of Information Acquisition in New Product Purchases.”Journal of Consumer Research 1 (September): 18–22.
Bettman, James R. 1979.An Information Processing Theory of Consumer Choice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Blattberg, Robert C. and John Deighton. 1996. “Manage Marketing by the Customer Equity Test.”Harvard Business Review 74 (July–August): 136–144.
Bolton, Ruth N. and Tina M. Bronkhorst. 1995. “The Relationship Between Customer Complaints to the Firm and Subsequent Exit Behavior.”Advances in Consumer Research 22:94–100.
— and Katherine N. Lemon. 1999. “A Dynamic Model of Customers' Usage of Services: Usage as an Antecedent and Consequence of Satisfaction.”Journal of Marketing Research 36 (May): 171–186.
Boulding, William, Ajay Kalra, Richard Staelin, and Valarie A. Zeithaml. 1993. “A Dynamic Process Model of Service Quality: From Expectations to Behavioral Intentions.”Journal of Marketing Research 30 (February): 7–27.
Carl, Jeremy. 1995. “Online Service Users: Loyal as Alley Cats?”Web Week 1 (November).
Celsi, Richard L. and Jerry C. Olson. 1988. “The Role of Involvement in Attention and Comprehension Processes.”Journal of Consumer Research 15:210–224.
Cohen, Jacob and P. Cohen. 1980.Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cronin, Joseph J. Jr. and Steven A. Taylor. 1992. “Measuring Service Quality: A Reexamination and Extension.”Journal of Marketing 56 (July): 55–68.
Dabholkar, Pratibha and Simon Walls. 1999. “Service Evaluation and Switching Behavior for Experiential Services: An Empirical Test of Gender Differences Within a Broader Conceptual Framework.”Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior 12:123–137.
Danaher, Peter J. and Roland T. Rust. 1996a. “Determining the Optimal Return on Investment for an Advertising Campaign.”European Journal of Operational Research 95 (3): 511–521.
— and —. 1996b “Indirect Financial Benefits From Service Quality.”Quality Management Journal 3 (2): 63–85.
Deighton, John. 1984. “The Interaction of Advertising and Evidence.”Journal of Consumer Research 11 (December): 763–770.
Dowling, Grahame R. and Mark Uncles. 1997. “Do Customer Loyalty Programs Really Work?”Sloan Management Review (Summer): 71–82.
Fiske, Susan T. and Shelley E. Taylor. 1984.Social Cognition. New York: Random House.
Fornell, Claes and Birger Wernerfelt. 1987. “Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis.”Journal of Marketing Research 24 (November): 337–346.
Furse, David H., Girish N. Punj, and David W. Stewart. 1984. “A Typology of Individual Search Strategies Among Purchasers of New Automobiles.”Journal of Consumer Research 10 (March):417–431.
Ganesh, Jaishankar, Mark J. Amold, and Kristy E. Reynolds. 2000. “Understanding the Customer Base of Service Providers: An Examination of the Differences Between Switchers and Stayers.”Journal of Marketing 64 (July): 65–87.
Grant, Alan W. and Leonard A. Schlesinger. 1995. “Realize Your Customer's Full Profit Potential.”Harvard Business Review 73 (September–October): 59–72.
Guseman, Dennis S. 1981. “Risk Perception and Risk Reduction in Consumer Services.” InMarketing of Services. Eds. James Donnelly and William George Chicago: American Marketing Association, 200–204.
Hair, Joseph F. Jr., Rolph E. Anderson, Ronald L. Tatham, and William C. Black. 1995Multivariate Data Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Heskett, James L., W. Earl Sasser Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger. 1997.The Service Profit Chain. New York: Free Press.
Hoch, Stephen J. and John Deighton. 1989. “Managing What Consumers Learn From Experience.”Journal of Marketing 53 (April): 1–20.
Houston, Michael J. 1979. “Consumer Evaluation of Product Information Sources.” InCurrent Issues and Research in Advertising. Eds. James H. Leigh and Claude R. Martin, Jr. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 135–144.
Jeffrey, Jaclyn R. and John J. Franco. 1996. “Identifying a Company's Most Profitable Customers: The First Step in Intelligent Customer Retention.”Information Strategy: The Executive's Journal, Summer, pp. 15–21.
Keaveney, Susan M. 1995. “Customer Switching Behavior in Service Industries: An Exploratory Study.”Journal of Marketing 59(2): 71–82.
Kingsley, Paul and Terry Anderson. 1998. “Facing Life Without the Internet.”Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy 8 (4): 303–312.
Kordupleski, Raymond E., Roland T. Rust, and Anthony J. Zahorik. 1993. “Why Improving Quality Doesn't Improve Quality (or Whatever Happended to Marketing?)”California Management Review 35 (3): 82–95.
Kotler, Philip R. 1997.Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
LaBarbera, Priscilla A., and David Mazursky. 1983. “A Longitudinal Assessment of Consumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction: The Dynamic Aspect of the Cognitive Process.”Journal of Marketing Research 20 (November): 393–404.
Levin, Rich. 1997. “The Ups and Downs of ISPs.”Information Week 657 (November 17).
Moore, William L. and Donald R. Lehman. 1980. “Individual Differences in Search Behavior for a Nondurable.”Journal of Consumer Research 7 (December): 296–307.
Murray, Keith B., 1991. “A Test of Services Marketing Theory: Consumer Information Acquisition Activities.”Journal of Marketing 55 (January): 10–25.
— and John L. Schlacter. 1990. “The Impact of Services Versus Goods on Consumers' Assessments of Perceived Risk and Variability.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 18 (1): 15–65.
Nelson Philip. 1970. “Information and Consumer Behavior.”Journal of Political Economy 78 (20): 311–329.
Oliva, Terence A., Richard L. Oliver, and William O. Bearden. 1995. “The Relationships Among Consumer Satisfaction, Involvement, and Product Performance: A Catastrophe Theory Application.”Behavioral Science 40:104–132.
Oliver, Richard L. 1997.Satisfaction. New York: McGraw-Hill.
— and William O. Bearden. 1983. “The Role of Involvement in Satisfaction Processes.” InAdvances in Consumer Research. Eds. Richard P. Bagozzi and Alice M. Tybout. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Consumer Research, 250–255.
Peters, Thomas J. 1988.Thriving on Chaos. New York: Knopf.
Pritchard, Mark P., Mark E. Havitz, and Dennis R. Howard. 1999. “Analyzing the Commitment-Loyalty Link in Service Contexts.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 27 (3): 333–348.
Raju, P. S. 1980. “Optimum Stimulation Level: Its Relationship to Personality, Demographics, and Exploratory Behavior.”Journal of Consumer Research 7 (December): 272–282.
Ram, S. and Hyung-Shik Jung. 1990. “The Conceptualization of Product Usage.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 18 (Winter): 67–76.
Reichheld, Frederick. 1993. “Loyalty-Based Management.”Harvard Business Review 71 (March-April): 64–74.
—. 1996. “Learning From Customer Defections.”Harvard Business Review 74 (March): 56–69.
— and David W. Kenny. 1990. “The Hidden Advantages of Customer Retention.”Journal of Retail Banking 12 (4): 19–23.
— and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. 1990. “Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services.”Harvard Business Review 68 (September–October): 105–111.
Richins, Marsha L. and Peter H. Bloch. 1991. “Post-Purchase Product Satisfaction: Incorporating the Effects of Involvement and Time.”Journal of Business Research 23: 145–158.
Roos, Inger. 1999. “Switching Processes in Customer Relationships.”Journal of Service Research 2 (1): 68–85.
Smith, Robert E. and William R. Swinyard. 1982. “Information Response Models: An Integrated Approach.”Journal of Marketing 46 (Winter): 81–93.
Spreng, Richard A., Scott B. MacKenzie, and Richard W. Olshavsky. 1996. “A Reexamination or the Determinants of Consumer Satisfaction.”Journal of Marketing 60 (July): 15–32.
Tabachnik, Barbara G. and Linda S. Fidell. 1983.Using Multivariate Statistics. New York: Harper & Row.
Yi, Youjae. 1990. “A Critical Review of Consumer Satisfaction.” InReview of Marketing 1990. Ed. Valarie A. Zeithaml. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 68–123.
Zeithaml, Valarie A. 2000. “Service Quality, Profitability, and the Economic Worth of Customers: What We Know and What We Need to Learn.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28 (1): 67–85.
—, Leonard L. Berry, and A. Parasuraman. 1993. “The Nature and Determinants of Customer Expectations of Service.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 21 (Winter): 1–12.
—, and —. 1996. “The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality.”Journal of Marketing 60 (April): 31–46.
Zinkhan, George M. and William Locander. 1988. “ESSCA: A Multidimensional Analysis Tool for Marketing Research.”Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 16 (1): 36–46.