Research On Factors Affecting Customer Loyalty For Mobile Data Services

The mobile data services are blooming in the whole world. Especially in China, with the biggest mobile communication customer base, the potential of mobile data services is unlimited. Customer loyalty is very critical to substainable development of the mobile data services providers. However, the issues of customer loyalty are still significant.Because the mobile data services are defined as“all kinds of innovative services that combine technologies and concepts from the domains of telecommunication, information technology, and consumer electronics”, the customer loyalty models and results from traditional services can’t be directly employed. There are three questions awaiting for answer. The first is how to measure the service quality of mobile data services. The second is how the service quality, customer value, customer satisfaction, and switching barriers determine the customer loyalty, and how to interact with each other. The third is how to transform the theory model validated by empirical test to decision model, so the important conclusions can be leveraged to alleviate the difficulties in daily marketing actions.This research aimed to solve aforementioned problems by following efforts:Firstly, this study developed and validated an instrument to measure user perceived service quality of mobile data services. A TAM-based conceptual framework was proposed to deduce dimensions of service quality dedicated to mobile data services. Using responses from 322 users, a six dimensions scale was validated involving: content quality, ease to use, reliability and speed, interactive quality, enjoyment quality and security/private. This scale provides a useful instrument for researchers who wish to measure the service quality of mobile data services and managers of service provider who want to improve their service performance.Secondly, an integrated analysis model was built up to further discussion of the relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, switching barriers and customer loyalty intention. Partial Least Square was used to analyze the data to find out the direct effects and moderate effects on customer loyalty. The main findings are as follows: (1) two service quality dimensions: security/private and reliability/speed positively influences both perceived value and customer satisfaction; Content quality and enjoyment positively influences customer value, and interactive quality positively influence customer satisfactory; (2) perceived value positively influences on both customer satisfaction; (3) customer value and customer satisfaction both positively influences customer loyalty intention, but customer satisfaction mostly influence attitudinal loyalty, and custome value mostly influence repurchase intention. Thus implies the decision approach of customers on repurchase and attitudinal is different; (4) the most ignored factor: switching barriers positive influence on customer value; (5) the moderate effects are existing in whole model, but no interactive variables are significant; (6) the proposed model is proven with the effectiveness in explaining the relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, swiching barriers and customer loyalty in mobile data services.Either Partial Least Square (PLS) or Bayesian networks are limited in building decision models. To overcome this limitation, this study linking Bayesian networks to PLS. The capability of PLS in empirical validation combined with the prediction and diagnosis capabilities of Bayesian modeling facilitates effective decision making from identification of causal relationships to decision support. This study applies the proposed integrated approach to decision support for customer loyalty management in mobile data services. The application results provide insights for practitioners on how to promote the loyalty of customers in mobile data services context.