The Effects of Marketing Activities on Customer Retention in Mobile Phone Service Industry

• Main Authors: Chen-Ting Lu, 盧建廷
• Other Authors: Yeong-Chan Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/11510583833229091712

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 電信管理研究所 === 91 === Recently, competition is getting fiercer in Taiwan mobile service industry. Mobile network operators provide not only different kinds of marketing activities to enhance customer relationship (i.e., perceived relationship investment), but also give bonus to subscribers whose contract will expire. To execute such marketing activities effectively, it is important to know (1) how significant such activities will affect subscriber’s retention decision, and (2) what subscriber internal attitudes will mediate the effects of marketing activities on the retention decision? Many studies have mentioned satisfaction as a key determinant in customers’ decisions to keep or drop a given service relationship. Yet other studies have suggested that other factors may also influence the customer’s retention decision such as: commitment and anticipated benefits. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to examine how the marketing activities influence subscriber’s retention decision through the mediation of the internal attitudes. This research divides into two parts. Study 1 demonstrates that perceived relationship investment affects satisfaction, commitment and anticipated benefits, ultimately leading to customer retention through a structural model. Study 2 was designed to test the individual effect of promotion program through a controlled experiment. The main results of this research are as follows: (1)The effects of satisfaction, commitment and anticipated benefits on subscriber’s retention are positive and significant. Among them, commitment has the largest direct effect. In addition, perceived relationship investment has significant impacts on satisfaction, anticipated benefit and commitment. (2)The results also suggest that satisfaction, commitment and anticipated benefits mediate the effect of perceived relationship investment on customer retention. (3)The effect of “handset subsidy” is strong than “freeairtime usage”. In addition, several suggestions for firms to implement marketing strategy effectively are proposed.