Feeling Comfortable: More Important Than Feeling Satisfied?

摘要

The ultimate aim of relationship marketing endeavors is to promote and ensure customer retention (Zeithaml, Berry, and Parsuraman 1996; Kotler and Keller 2009). Historically, customer satisfaction is considered as a critical and an immediate antecedent of customer loyalty (Bolton and Drew 1991; Kotler 2003; Payne, Holt and Frow 2000). Companies can gain strong benefits by maintaining long-term customer relationships resulting from increased satisfaction (Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml 1983; Shani and Chalasani 1992; Zeithaml et al. 1996). Even though satisfaction is argued to be a critical antecedent of loyalty or long-term retention, satisfied customers still leave their service providers (Reichheld 1996; Symonds, Wright and Ott 2007). Reichheld (1996) found that between 65% and 85% of defecting customers maintain that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with their former suppliers. Using the construct of comfort to capture the affective dimension of service evaluation (satisfaction captures the cognitive dimension), we investigate the phenomenon of satisfied customers leaving their service providers by focusing on individual trait difference in customers towards relationship development. We examine the role of "consumer relationship proneness" as moderating variable and its role on the impact of comfort and satisfaction in driving loyalty.