A Critical Review of Literature on Customer Service Loyalty

Abstract

Service organizations are continually looking for ways to increase customer loyalty. Although loyalty to tangible goods (brand loyalty) has been studied extensively by marketing scholars, relatively little theoretical or empirical research has examined loyalty to service organizations (service loyalty). This independent conceptual study paper presents a critical review of literature pertaining to previous loyalty research studies by examining service loyalty and factors expected to influence its development. In particular, a literature review is combined with analysis of qualitative data from interviews to develop a model of customer service loyalty that includes six antecedents’ customer satisfaction, customer service, price, service quality value-added-services and switching (barriers) costs. From the literature review and on the basis of the relationships depicted in the proposed conceptual model, the following hypotheses will be used to guide the study and have been formulated for testing: Hi Customer satisfaction has an influence on the relationship between customer service and customer service loyalty. H2 Customer satisfaction has an influence on the relationship between price and customer service loyalty. H3 Customer satisfaction has an influence on the relationship between service quality and customer service loyalty. H4 Customer satisfaction has an influence on the relationship between value-added-services and customer service loyalty. H5 Customer satisfaction has an influence on the relationship between switching costs and customer service loyalty. H6 Customer satisfaction has an influence on the joint effect of customer service, price, service quality, value-added-services and switching costs on customer service loyalty.