A Cross-national Study on Customer Loyalty Process of South Korean and Chinese Mobile Telecommunications Users

Fast changing, unprecedented growth of mobile telecommunications users elicits the importance of customer loyalty. This research proposes a new model labeled ‘customer loyalty process (CLP),’ to explore how mobile telecom users become loyal to their service providers. It clarifies the concepts and integrates logical linkages among variables that are frequently mentioned in mobile telecom service marketing discipline – i.e. service quality, switching barriers, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The CLP is used to empirically test Korean and Chinese mobile telecom service. Through factor analyses, the research refines the concepts and measurement items of variables in the model. More specifically, second-order confirmatory factor analysis is used to extract and clarify the sub-dimensions of two of its variables – i.e. service quality and switching barriers. The findings provide a strong support for the model except for the direct causal relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty where the relationship is only significant through the mediating role of switching barriers. The study identifies notable disparities between Korean and Chinese markets, particularly on the perceptions of interpersonal relationship and customer loyalty, and the causal relationship between service quality and switching barriers. It provides several theoretical and empirical insights in enhancing the understanding of mobile telecommunications service in Korea and China.