The Moderator Effects of Switching Costs and Customer Expertise in the Satisfaction-Repurchase Intention Relationship for Mobile Telecommunication Services

Abstract:This study discusses and tests the moderator role of monetary, time, effort, social ties and relational switching costs and their interactions with customer expertise in the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship for mobile communication services. The authors use survey data of 516 customers from the three largest mobile communication providers in Vietnam. A moderated regression is used to test the hypotheses of both two- and three-way interaction effects on repurchase intention. The results show that monetary, time, effort and social ties switching costs have a negative moderating effect, but relational switching costs have a positive moderating effect on the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship. Furthermore, this study contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence supporting three-way interaction effects between satisfaction, switching costs and customer expertise on repurchase intention. Specifically, customer expertise reduces the moderating effects of social ties and relational switching costs on the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship.