How switching costs affect subscriber loyalty in the Turkish mobile phone market: An exploratory study

Abstract

Both academics and practitioners approve of the strategic role of customer switching cost on ensuring customer loyalty. However, there is no consensus on either conceptualisation or measuring customer switching costs. In this context, the aims of this study are (1) to develop a model by using different sub-constructs of customer switching costs to prove this model's reliability and validity (discriminant and convergence) and (2) to analyse relationships among customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, trust and switching costs' sub-constructs in the mobile phone market. To this end, the data were obtained from 1,662 ‘global system for mobiles’ (GSM) users by using a questionnaire. The findings, reached from exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, show that the model of customer switching costs is reliable and valid, and there are statistically significant relationships among variables as expected.