Determinants of customer retention: A comparative study on two service environments

Abstract

The service providers should understand the process that involves maintaining customer relationships, investigating the constructs that imply customer retention and their competitiveness. Thus, this research proposed the replication and testing of a theoretical model, considering the constructs: Perceived Value, Reputation of the Service Provider, Trust and Exchange Costs as determinants of Customer Retention. The method used was descriptive and quantitative, by means of the application of the same survey to two different contexts of service providers. The sample of Study 1 consisted of 269 client companies of the business health plan groups in the region of Caxias do Sul (RS). In Study 2 the sample of mobile telephony was made up of 471 customers of one operator. For data analysis, multivariate statistics were used, including Structural Equation Modeling, so that the hypotheses proposed in the study could be tested and analyzed. The results showed that the value perceived by customers positively influences the reputation of the service provider; the reputation of the service provider positively influences customer trust in the service provider and the reputation of the service provider positively influences customer retention. Moreover, it was found that the value perceived by customers does not positively influence the exchange costs in both environments investigated. Besides, it was evident that there are differences in the validation of some hypotheses because of the different contexts of services analyzed.

Keywords: Perceived Value, Reputation, Trust, Exchange Costs, Customer Retention.