The influence of market heterogeneity on customer loyalty: a multigroup analysis

Abstract

Loyalty is configured as one of the main determinants of firm performance. Many works have proposed models that analyze the relationship between loyalty and its main determinants: the customer perceived value (PV), their level of satisfaction and their perceived switching costs (PSC). Thus, the aim of this study is to validate a model that gathers the relationships between these variables and analyze the influence of customer characteristics -propensity towards switching and customer involvement-on these relationships in the insurance industry. The results show that (a) for the whole sample, perceived value, satisfactions and switching costs are set as antecedents of loyalty; (b) however, for customers with high tendency to switch, the path to a loyalty behavior is only mediated by the influence of their perceived value in their satisfaction; and finally (c) for these individuals, the strength of the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty is lower than customers with low tendency to switch.