Beyond satisfaction
The relative importance of locational
convenience, interpersonal relationships, and
commitment across service types
Li-Wei Wu
Department of International Business, Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose – Many studies have documented that satisfaction does not always result in loyalty, and
that dissatisfaction does not necessarily result in defection. In response, this study goes beyond
satisfaction and proposes the moderating effects of locational convenience, interpersonal relationships,
and commitment between satisfaction and customer loyalty across search, experience, and credence
attribute services.
Design/methodology/approach – Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was used to test the
hypotheses.
Findings – The results suggest that from search attribute services to experience and credence
attribute services, the relative importance of locational convenience with regard to retaining
dissatisfied customers is likely to decline. Search and experience attribute services that can develop
and maintain close interpersonal relationships with their customers are more likely to retain
dissatisfied customers. Commitment maintains customer loyalty, even when customer satisfaction is
lower across search, experience, and credence attribute services.
Originality/value – This study discriminates dissatisfied customers’ loyalty behaviors based on
locational convenience from those behaviors resulting from interpersonal relationships and
commitment across service types, and thus has significance for the marketing strategies of
businesses providing different service types, particularly in terms of dissatisfaction resolution
strategies.
Keywords Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty, Interpersonal relations, Service industries
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Achieving customer satisfaction has long been identified as the key to customer loyalty
(Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Bolton, 1998; Szymanski and Henard, 2001). Service
providers seek to manage and increase satisfaction (Ranaweera and Prabhu, 2003);
however, satisfaction does not always result in customer loyalty, and dissatisfaction
does not necessarily result in switching (Egan, 2004; Jones et al., 2000). The exact effect
of satisfaction on customer loyalty has been questioned (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993;
Mittal and Lassar, 1998; Verhoef et al., 2002). Empirical studies often indicate that this
relationship is indirect and complex (Mittal et al., 1998). For example, the nonlinearity
and asymmetry of the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty has been
confirmed (Agustin and Singh, 2005). Mittal and Kamakura (2001) also found support
for increasing and decreasing returns to scale in the effect of satisfaction on customer
loyalty. In addition, several different moderating roles have been proposed between
satisfaction and customer loyalty, such as relationship age (Cooil et al., 2007; Verhoef
et al., 2002), category similarity (Bolton et al., 2004), sociodemographics (Cooil et al.,
2007; Homburg and Giering, 2001; Mittal and Kamakura, 2001), switching barriers
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0960-4529.htm
MSQ
21,3
240
Managing Service Quality
Vol. 21 No. 3, 2011
pp. 240-263
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0960-4529
DOI 10.1108/09604521111127956