The Moderator Effects of Switching Costs and Customer Expertise in the SatisfactionRepurchase Intention Relationship for Mobile Telecommunication Services

 et al., 2001; Patterson and Smith, 
2003; Ranaweera and Prabhu, 2003; Woiset-
schlọger et al., 2011). This study is also among 
a few studies including social ties switching 
costs when investigating its moderating role on 
the satisfaction-repurchase intention relation-
ship (Woisetschlọger et al., 2011).
The findings are also supported by Vazquez-
Casielles et al.’s (2009) perspectives that the 
negative or positive moderator role of switch-
Journal of Economics and Development Vol. 17, No.2, August 201599
ing costs on the satisfaction-repurchase inten-
tion relationship depends on their negative or 
positive nature (Jones et al., 2007; Vazquez-
Casielles et al., 2009). The first type is asso-
ciated with the customer’s feeling of being 
“locked into” the relationship, while the sec-
ond is associated with benefits and value for 
the customer (Vazquez-Casielles et al., 2009). 
Besides the negative or positive nature of MTE 
and relational switching costs are discussed in 
previous studies (Aydin et al., 2005; Jones et 
al., 2000; Jones et al., 2007; Vazquez-Casielles 
et al., 2009), the findings seem to support that 
social ties switching costs are a negative type 
of switching cost. This means that if custom-
ers switch to other service providers, they may 
receive penalties from social networks. For 
example, a customer may feel discomfort be-
cause he/she may think that his/her friends or 
shared community will think about him/her 
as a changeable person. Businessmen/women 
may face risks because their partners could 
not call them by their old cell phone numbers. 
Therefore, social ties switching costs become 
obstacles which keep them “having to stay” 
rather than “wanting to stay” with the service. 
The consideration of both positive and neg-
ative moderator effects of different types of 
switching costs in the relationship provides a 
deeper insight into the mechanism forming re-
purchase intention from satisfaction, in which 
MTE and social ties switching costs act as in-
hibitors, while relational switching costs act 
as facilitators (Vazquez-Casielles et al., 2009). 
The findings show that when MTE and social 
ties switching costs are high, customers may 
stay with a firm regardless of their feelings of 
satisfaction levels with the firm. By contrast, 
when relational switching costs are high, cus-
tomers’ feelings of satisfaction are an import-
ant factor influencing their retention. This in-
dicates that satisfaction may fail to predict re-
purchase intention under high MTE and social 
ties switching costs; for example, dissatisfied 
consumers with high levels of MTE and social 
ties switching costs may be spuriously loyal 
consumers (Dick and Basu, 1994). By con-
trast, satisfaction may be more successful in 
predicting repurchase intention when relational 
switching costs are perceived highly, or rela-
tional switching costs generated by a service 
itself or by a service provider may be factors 
helping to increase the predictive strengthen of 
satisfaction. 
Customer expertise is found to moderate the 
satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship 
positively. This means that the relevant exper-
tise based on which customers form their eval-
uations and make decisions to continue staying 
with the service plays an important role in nar-
rowing the gap between satisfaction and repur-
chase intention (Tuu et al., 2011). Specifically, 
for low-expertise customers, the magnitude of 
the relationships between satisfaction and re-
purchase intention is weaker than for high-ex-
pertise customers. Our results are supported by 
some previous studies both in a service context 
(Chiou et al., 2002), a product category con-
text (Tuu et al., 2011), and in general attitude 
strength theory (e.g., Fabrigar et al., 2006). 
However, our findings oppose those of previ-
ous studies in marketing which find customer 
expertise to have a negative moderating effect 
on the satisfaction-loyalty relationship (Capra-
ro et al., 2003; Evanschitzky and Wunderlich, 
2006). 
This study is also among a very few explor-
ing the interaction of switching costs and cus-
tomer expertise influencing loyalty (Bell et al., 
Journal of Economics and Development Vol. 17, No.2, August 2015100
2005). However, while Bell et al. (2005) test 
their interaction role on the service quality-loy-
alty relationship, this study investigates this 
role on the satisfaction-repurchase intention 
relationship. The results of the three-way inter-
action tests are partially supportive of the pro-
posed hypotheses and provide a deeper insight 
into the moderating effects of different types 
of switching costs. Specifically, satisfaction 
has a reduced effect on repurchase intention 
when MTE and social ties switching costs in-
crease, but this phenomenon should be true just 
for novice customers. By contrast, satisfaction 
has an increased effect on repurchase intention 
when relational switching costs increase, but 
this effect only occurs for novice customers as 
well. In other words, while MTE and social ties 
switching costs may be considered a mean of 
keeping customer retention, they become less 
effective when customer expertise increases. 
Similarly, relational switching costs gener-
ated by a firm to build the loyalty of satisfied 
customers are effective for expert customers. 
Thus, the results also imply that dissatisfied 
customers who defect are expert customers, or 
satisfied customers with high expertise may be 
true loyal ones.
5.2. Practical implications
Our findings, therefore, have several man-
agerial implications. Customer management 
based on satisfaction has been confirmed as a 
vital strategy for companies, but it is not suffi-
cient to keep customers’ loyalty (Oliver, 1999). 
The results of the three-way interaction effects 
between satisfaction, different types of switch-
ing costs and customer expertise on repurchase 
intention shed light onto understanding how 
customers move from satisfaction to loyalty 
with a service provider. This knowledge may 
help businesses better manage relationships 
with their customers. 
To enhance consumer loyalty, management 
attention should focus on building switching 
costs (Jones et al., 2007). Specifically, service 
providers may need to realize when their cus-
tomers are staying willingly and when they 
feel locked into their relationships (Vazquez-
Casielles et al., 2009). For example, to increase 
repurchase intention, the service providers 
should attempt to influence the creation of 
social ties (Woisetschlọger et al., 2011). This 
goal is achievable through a promotion strate-
gy focusing on groups or organizational mem-
bers. For instance, mobile firms can establish a 
special fee or an added service for an internal 
calling network of an organization or a com-
munity. This special treatment can not only in-
crease close relationships of customers with the 
firms, but also increase the value for custom-
ers sharing the common networks; therefore, 
it can contribute to satisfaction for the social 
communities. However, the findings suggest 
that service providers should concentrate on as-
pects that originate relational switching costs, 
rather than ones that raise MTE and social ties 
switching costs further (Vazquez-Casielles et 
al., 2009). This means that although MTE and 
social ties switching costs allow firms to gen-
erate profits from their current customers, the 
competitive advantage obtained in this way is 
only temporary and is difficult to sustain in the 
long-term because MTE and social ties switch-
ing costs may have serious negative, long-term 
consequences for the firm (Burnham et al., 
2003). By contrast, the provider can generate 
feelings of willing bonds with them by creat-
ing affective and psychological bonds between 
customers and the provider, offering special 
treatment according to each customer’s indi-
Journal of Economics and Development Vol. 17, No.2, August 2015101
vidual needs (Vazquez-Casielles et al., 2009). 
The findings show that satisfied custom-
ers with high expertise are more loyal than 
customers with low expertise about the pro-
viders. Thus, increasing their satisfaction and 
educating them with relevant knowledge about 
the provider’s services may be an appropriate 
strategy (Tuu et al., 2011). To the extent that 
customer expertise develops over time, they 
may increasingly value additional information 
about the focal service by consolidating their 
satisfaction feelings. Mobile firms could be 
customized to meet the varying levels of ex-
pertise among customers, such as by providing 
greater amounts of service information to ex-
pert customers and less to others, or designing 
different service packages that allow expert 
customers more insight into, and involvement 
with, the service (Bell et al., 2005). However, 
the firms should identify customers with high 
expertise and carry out a benefit-cost analysis 
for this segmentation to make appropriate deci-
sions regarding whether they should keep them 
(retention) or push them to other firms. Because 
this study emphasizes the practical significance 
of combining switching costs and customer 
expertise, this strategy is expected not only to 
increase the movement from satisfaction to re-
purchase intention, but also increase the effec-
tiveness of positive switching costs generated 
by the firm.
5.3. Conclusion, limitations and future re-
search
In summary, this study confirms the combined 
moderator role of different types of switching 
costs (MTE, social ties and relational) and cus-
tomer expertise in the satisfaction-repurchase 
intention relationship. The findings indicate 
that while MTE and social ties switching costs 
moderate negatively, relational switching costs 
positively moderate the satisfaction-repurchase 
intention relationship. Customer expertise is 
found to moderate the satisfaction-repurchase 
intention relationship positively, and especial-
ly, it still interacts with the switching costs to 
influence the satisfaction-repurchase intention 
relationship in different directions depending 
on the nature of each switching cost. 
Despite the above contributions, this study 
has several limitations. The present research is 
based on a sample of three Vietnamese mobile 
phone brands. Future research should expand 
to a more representative sample of a popula-
tion and to other products or services, as well 
as testing them in other countries or markets. 
Other moderators of the satisfaction-loyalty 
relationship such as customer characteristics, 
situational characteristics (Evanschitzky and 
Wunderlich, 2006; Seiders et al., 2005), or oth-
er dimensions of switching costs (Burnham et 
al., 2003) can be considered for future studies. 
For example, Kumar et al. (2013) suggest in 
their recent review that commitment, trust and 
involvement are important factors in under-
standing the satisfaction-loyalty relationship. 
The results presented here are based on self-re-
ported measures of satisfaction and repurchase 
intention; hence, erroneous inferences can be 
produced if common method variance inflates 
the estimates of the association between them. 
Behavioral loyalty differs from attitudinal loy-
alty (Kumar et al., 2013), and objective repur-
chase loyalty as a dependent measure may give 
other results (Seiders et al., 2005). The dif-
ferent definitions and measures of knowledge 
(e.g., objective versus self-reported) have been 
shown to have unequal effects on different out-
come variables (Park et al., 1994; Tuu et al., 
2011). Therefore, the results might change, for 
Journal of Economics and Development Vol. 17, No.2, August 2015102
example if an objective measure of knowledge 
was used. As with all studies using correlation 
methods, the nature of the relationships is prob-
lematic. Thus, experimental designs or differ-
ent functional forms of satisfaction-loyalty re-
lationship (e.g., linear vs. nonlinear) should be 
used in order to address issues of causality in 
future studies (Tuu et al., 2011).
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