Antecedents of user post-adoption behavior in mobile marketplace

Abstract

Customer retention is one of the most critical issues for subscription-based businesses because a small decrease in churn can bring about a huge impact on enterprise value. Thus, it is important for a company to prevent clients from switching away from products or services they are currently using. Two crucial determinants of customer’s defection - satisfaction and switching costs - have been identified in the mobile telecommunications marketplace. However, it is not enough to simply explain customer churning behavior with satisfaction and switching costs in isolation. This thesis attempts to build a conceptual model to decipher the links among satisfaction, switching costs, alternative attractiveness, and continuance intention. The alternative attractiveness is defined to consist of perceived price, perceived service quality, perceived handset quality, and the ease of the subscription process. This integration extends past customer retention analysis. The model is tested by survey data from a sample of 216 respondents who have used mobile telecommunications service. The analysis result confirms the moderating effect of perceived price and perceived service quality. Practically, the result can help mobile telecommunications service managers develop strategies to retain their own customers more effectively.