An Empirical Research Of The Influence Of Switching Barriers On Customers' Loyalty

With the development of society and economy, the competition in market is more fierce than ever before. In this condition, both the academia and practitioners put their eyes on how to keep customers and to promote their loyalty. Being an important influencing factor to customer loyalty, switching barriers have been studied by many academicians, home and aboard. However, the results are not totally the same. In this condition, based on the previous research, a conceptual model of how switching barriers affect customer loyalty was built up. In the case of retail banking, it demonstrates the layers of switching barriers, and proves the direct and moderating mechanisms of switching barriers on customer loyalty, as well.The data in the present thesis is collected from questionnaires which are completed by the customers of the domestic retail banks, and then processed with SPSS software to test the model, methods employed in this study included reliability analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis and T tests of independent two samples.The main conclusions of the thesis are: (1) switching barriers include switching costs, attractiveness of alternatives and interpersonal relationships. furthermore, switching costs includes search and learning costs, sunk and lost performance costs, setting up costs, uncertainty costs and convenience costs. Convenience costs is a new layer of switching costs defined by the thesis, based on China retail banking industry. (2) the layers of switching barriers have direct effects on customer loyalty, in which switching costs and interpersonal relationships have positive effects on customer loyalty, and attractiveness of alternatives have negative effects on customer loyalty. Meanwhile, switching costs and interpersonal relationships have regulating effects on customer loyalty, the higher the switching costs or interpersonal relationships, the weaker the relationships between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. (3) Influenced by convenience costs, customers who receive their wages through banks faced a higher switching costs than the other customers who do not.