How to Make Switching Costly
研究了价格、广告和关系特征如何影响客户的转换成本，发现企业可通过营销手段让客户更难转向竞争对手，对营销决策者有参考价值。
Customer switching costs have emerged as one of the fundamental drivers of customer retention. Although the consequences of these costs have been well documented in the literature, research on the determinants of switching costs remains limited. The present study seeks to address this issue by investigating the extent to which switching costs are influenced by marketing variables—price and advertising—and relationship characteristics. The authors develop a conceptual framework about the drivers of switching costs and test the framework empirically in the mobile phone industry using a hierarchical Bayes approach. The empirical results show that by using price and advertising—both service and brand advertising—firms are able to make switching costly for customers. Moreover, relationship characteristics significantly contribute to explaining consumers’ differences in the cost of switching. Finally, this study illustrates the key role played by competitors’ marketing actions in affecting the cost of switching for customers of the focal firm. Implications for decision makers are discussed.