روابط مصرف کننده – برند و وفاداری به برند در تکنولوژی با واسطه
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Conceptual background and research hypotheses
3- Research methodology
4- Empirical results
5- Theoretical and managerial implications
6- Limitations and suggestions for further research
References
Abstract
The successful diffusion of broadband services has substantially contributed to economic growth in the last decade. Broadband markets are now in the maturity phase and therefore, competition for customers is intense. However, while companies invest heavily on customer acquisition, there are few efforts for customer retention through the development of profitable long-term brand relationships. This study aims to develop and test a model to investigate the effect of three brand relationship dimensions, namely brand trust; brand satisfaction (cognitive dimensions), and brand commitment (emotional/affective dimension) on brand loyalty (repurchase intentions; positive recommendations, and price tolerance) in the broadband services market. Results indicate that the cognitive aspects of brand relationships are the major drivers of behavioral intentions followed by the affective one. On the other hand, the affective aspect of brand relationships has a stronger effect on price tolerance, while trust has no direct effect. Managerial implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.
Introduction
Fixed broadband internet services are offered by internet service providers (ISPs) and are defined as the technology that allows access to internet content at very high speed and enables people to access information; products, and services available on the internet without temporal restrictions (Choudrie and Middleton, 2014). However, several reports have shown decreased satisfaction and loyalty for ISPs worldwide. For example, the ACSI (2014) reported that “as the number of internet users grow, customer satisfaction with the services retreats, sliding 3.1% to an ACSI score of 63 – the bottom rating among 43 household consumer industries measured in the index”. Statista (2015) provides customer satisfaction statistics for ISPs in the U.K. Results show that satisfied and very satisfied customers dropped 4% (from 90% to 86%) between the first quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2010. Finally, the findings of Accenture's Global Consumer Pulse Research for 2013 (Accenture, 2013) for ISPs depicts the same picture since 32% (vs. 37% for 2012) of respondents declared that they are completely satisfied with the services offered; 23% (vs. 28% for 2012) felt loyal towards providers, and 23% (vs. 27% for 2012) had an intention to recommend their providers to others. This is mainly due to the fact that fixed broadband markets are currently in the maturity phase and therefore, service providers engage in intense competition for customers and use price as the main competitive tool. On the other hand, fixed broadband services diffusion has been shown to be a very critical factor for economic growth since a 10% increase in the penetration of fixed broadband services would increase GDP by 1.21% in developed economies (Minges, 2016).