نارسایی خدمات و تغییر رفتارهای مصرف کننده : شواهدی از صنعت بیمه

This paper analyzes consumer switching behaviors from the perspectives of consumer psychology and interactions with the society, such as consumer’s emotional intelligence, relationship involvement and personality traits. We survey life insurance policyholders in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Our results show that when service failures are more serious, consumers with higher emotional intelligence exhibit lower intention to switch than those with lower emotional intelligence. Similarly, the more serious the service failures, the more the consumers with internal locus-of-control orientation exhibit intention to change their existing consumption than those with external locus-of-control orientation. Further for more serious the service failures, the higher the relationship involvement with customers, the more their intention to switch is reduced. The unique contribution of this paper is that it combines multivariate statistical analysis and a non-linear neural fuzzy network model structure to verify the collected data. The paper concludes with a discussion of management implications and recommendations for future studies.

Although external expansions of products and markets remain one of the key foci of corporate development, the maintenance of customer willingness to consume is also an important issue for companies in this era of wafer thin profits and intense competition. Understanding consumer switching behaviors is a necessary in determining how to retain customers. Previous literature examining customer switching behaviors has mostly focused on such areas as the controllable and uncontrollable factors that affect consumer switching behavior, factors that affect consumer switching behaviors in certain industries or in certain markets, or across different countries and cultures. However, there are relative few analyses of the factors that affect the switching behaviors of consumers from the perspectives of consumers’ psychology and society. These factors include emotional intelligence of consumers, personality traits, and relationship involvement. Studies of controllable and uncontrollable factors tend to focus on service environments, attitudes, atmosphere and clues. Meaningful cross-cultural comparisons are lacking. To fill these gaps, we surveyed consumers in Taiwan and Hong Kong where the language and culture are broadly similar, in order to compare and contrast similarities and differences in consumer switching behaviors. Previous empirical research has generally applied linear multivariate statistical analysis or structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data. However, our methodology combines multivariate statistical analysis and non-linear neural fuzzy network models in analyzing the data. For example, Keaveney (1995) proposed eight major factors. For instance, controllable core services including convenience (derived services), service attitude and environment, prices and business moral and uncontrolled factors, include competition and non-volunteer switching. Business shut-down and relocations of customers are such instances. For example, Manrai and Manrai (2007) proposed four factors that influence customer satisfaction in the banking industry across different levels. These factors are consumers’ personal reasons, financial factors, store environment and convenience. The empirical finding also pointed out that different customer groups exhibit significant differences in terms of the special services that affect their switching behaviors. In addition, consumer switching behaviors may be different if the competing banks provide different special services. For example, Athanassopoulos (2000) proposed a set of measurements to gauge consumers’ satisfaction, such as quality of services, convenience and innovation. Comparisons are also made for consumers of different type of companies and the switching behaviors of consumers with various characteristics. For instance, Money (2004) compared the institutional consumers in the B2B markets in Japan and the US. The empirical finding showed that the companies operating overseas find it easier to switch compared to the companies operating in home countries. (1) Although there is a considerate amount of related literature, there are still many topics waiting to be explored: there are discussions of controllable and uncontrollable factors that affect the switching behaviors of customers (Athanassopoulos, 2000, Chakravarty et al., 2004 and Manrai and Manrai, 2007). Some studies focused on the consumers under different cultural backgrounds or different natures in order to compare the switching behaviors of the consumers in question. However, these surveys are performed on the consumers across regions or countries (Money, 2004). As there are huge gaps in the consumer cultures and values in these studies, the conclusions made on the basis of such comparisons have limited extensibilities in terms of their management implications.

Although external expansions of products and markets remain one of the key foci of corporate development, the maintenance of customer willingness to consume is also an important issue for companies in this era of wafer thin profits and intense competition. Understanding consumer switching behaviors is a necessary in determining how to retain customers. Previous literature examining customer switching behaviors has mostly focused on such areas as the controllable and uncontrollable factors that affect consumer switching behavior, factors that affect consumer switching behaviors in certain industries or in certain markets, or across different countries and cultures. However, there are relative few analyses of the factors that affect the switching behaviors of consumers from the perspectives of consumers’ psychology and society. These factors include emotional intelligence of consumers, personality traits, and relationship involvement. Studies of controllable and uncontrollable factors tend to focus on service environments, attitudes, atmosphere and clues. Meaningful cross-cultural comparisons are lacking. To fill these gaps, we surveyed consumers in Taiwan and Hong Kong where the language and culture are broadly similar, in order to compare and contrast similarities and differences in consumer switching behaviors. Previous empirical research has generally applied linear multivariate statistical analysis or structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data. However, our methodology combines multivariate statistical analysis and non-linear neural fuzzy network models in analyzing the data. For example, Keaveney (1995) proposed eight major factors. For instance, controllable core services including convenience (derived services), service attitude and environment, prices and business moral and uncontrolled factors, include competition and non-volunteer switching. Business shut-down and relocations of customers are such instances. For example, Manrai and Manrai (2007) proposed four factors that influence customer satisfaction in the banking industry across different levels. These factors are consumers’ personal reasons, financial factors, store environment and convenience. The empirical finding also pointed out that different customer groups exhibit significant differences in terms of the special services that affect their switching behaviors. In addition, consumer switching behaviors may be different if the competing banks provide different special services. For example, Athanassopoulos (2000) proposed a set of measurements to gauge consumers’ satisfaction, such as quality of services, convenience and innovation. Comparisons are also made for consumers of different type of companies and the switching behaviors of consumers with various characteristics. For instance, Money (2004) compared the institutional consumers in the B2B markets in Japan and the US. The empirical finding showed that the companies operating overseas find it easier to switch compared to the companies operating in home countries. (1) Although there is a considerate amount of related literature, there are still many topics waiting to be explored: there are discussions of controllable and uncontrollable factors that affect the switching behaviors of customers (Athanassopoulos, 2000, Chakravarty et al., 2004 and Manrai and Manrai, 2007). Some studies focused on the consumers under different cultural backgrounds or different natures in order to compare the switching behaviors of the consumers in question. However, these surveys are performed on the consumers across regions or countries (Money, 2004). As there are huge gaps in the consumer cultures and values in these studies, the conclusions made on the basis of such comparisons have limited extensibilities in terms of their management implications.