Research On The Relationship Among Relational Benefits, Switching Cost And Customer Loyalty In Campus Mobile Communication Industry

With the recombination and consolidation of the communications industry, competition in the communications market has been very intense. Customers as the company’s most important resource is the focus of market competition. Competition for customers has become three major communications operators’ focus. Students as a huge customer groups in college campus market, attract the attention of the major communications operators.Customer churn problem has intensified competition for customers. It not only brings economic losses to the operators, but also upsets the balance of the market. So now how to retain customers has become a topic of scholars’ discussion. With the development of the relationship management theory and relationship marketing theory, relational benefits as an important concept receive unprecedented attention. Communication operators homogenization competition trends are becoming evident. So operators can strengthen relationships with customers to promote customer loyalty, and increase the operator’s competitive advantage.Service companies establishing long-term relationships with customers could cultivate customer loyalty. Switching costs as a conversion disorder also bring about loyal customer. Many scholars have studied the switching costs’ indirect or moderating effect on customer loyalty. Switching costs’ influence on customer loyalty can not be ignored. This paper will also continue to explore the relationship between switching costs and customer loyalty based on the relational benefits model.However, the vast majority of studies on mobile communications industry did not involve the relational benefits. The paper based on previous research on relational benefits, combing with in-depth interviews on college communications market, and divides relational benefits into three dimensions:confidence benefits, special treatment benefits and respected benefits.The paper make customer loyalty as a dependent variable, switching costs as independent variable and moderating variable construct the research model of this paper, in order to explore the relationship among relational benefits, switching costs and customer loyalty. The study also can make the enterprise more fully understand the effects of relational benefits and switching cost on customer loyalty, in order to take more effective strategies to retain customers.