An Empirical Study Of Service Encounter's Effect On Customer Relationship In Telecommunication Industry

Key factors for gaining profit and sustainable competitive edge have also been switched from technological breakthroughs and business development to obtaining customer loyalty and maintaining customer relationship. So maintaining customer relationship management has become one of the most important research topics. Previous studies have found that perceived value and customer satisfaction, whose evaluation objects are products and exchanges, influence customer relationship positively. Recently, some researchers proposed that all touch points with customers would be key factors affecting customer relationship. So the concepts such as service encounter, relationship satisfaction, relationship trust and relationship commitment, whose evaluation objects are relationships, appeared correspondingly. It is found that the space for customer retention via technological breakthroughs and business development is limited in the fierce competitive telecommunications industry. So the effect of service entounter on customer relationship in communication industry should be researched. In order to make the research more comprehensive and innovative, three stages of research work are conducted on the basis of three core concepts that are service encounter, customer relationship and switching behavior.First, on the basis of literature review and qualitative interview, the dissertation defines the concept of service encounter in communication industry as the interaction between customers and what they encounter in the process they use products or accept service, which includs the person that delivering service, service environment, relevant technical support and so on. The dissertation further specifies four service encounter dimensions: function encounter, person-to-person encounter, circumstance encounter and remote encounter. Using the data of customers of communication industry, a reliable and valid four-dimension scale is developed.Second, based on Social Exchange Theory and Trust-Commitment Theory, the dissertation builds up a theoretical model, in which the four dimensions of service encounter influence relationship commitment via relationship satisfaction and relationship trust. And then the model is tested empirically. The results show that in the relations among the four dimensions of service encounter, function encounter has significant effect on person-to-person encounter, circumstance encounter, as well as remote encounter. And person-to-person encounter also has positive effect on circumstance encounter and remote encounter. The results also indicate that relationship satisfaction and relationship trust are the most immediate antecedents of relationship commitment. Both of them influence customer loyalty directly, while relationship satisfaction also influences relationship commitment indirectly via relationship trust. In the relations between service encounter and customer relaitonship, the four dimensions of service encounter influence relationship satisfaction positively. And funtion encounter and person-to-person encounter also have positive effects on relationship trust. While in the relation between service encounter and relationship commitment, only function encounter has a direct effect on relationship commitment.Finally, the dissertation divides samples into two groups which represents switchers and stayers respectively, and examines the moderating effects of customer switching behavior to the relationship between service encounter and customer relationship. After testing the theoretical model in the samples of different customers' switching behaviors, we conclude that the model is valid in different switching behavior. By testing the differences of the path coefficients in different switching behavior, we draw the following conclusions. In the relation between service encounter and customer relationship, function encounter's influence on relationship satisfaction, relationship trust and relationship commitment of switchers are more significant than stayers. While person-to-person encounter's influence on relationship satisfaction and relationship trust, circumstance encounter's influence on relationship satisfaction, as well as remote encounter's influence on relationship satisfaction of stayers, are more significant than switchers.