Customer satisfaction is a prerequisite factor of customer loyalty (the major cause). As long as the enterprise can improve the customer's satisfaction level, it can bring the customer loyalty directly. However, some studies questioned about the positive correlation between them. Research statistics from American Bean Company indicated that customer satisfaction is uncertain to bring customer loyalty, and there is research showing that they have weak correlation, even no correlation. What’s more, some documents put forward other different opinions related to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
1.2 Research Significance
The complex relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty has been studied by scholars at home and abroad. Now, the study on customer satisfaction and customer department regulation is still relatively rare. Regulatory factors are still not fully revealed and understood. In spite of the moderating role of switching costs, customer relationship and other social relationships, some scholars have been concerned about the moderating role of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. But the conclusions are not consistent.
As a result, this study is based on a questionnaire survey of the consumer environment in China. The moderating effects of switching costs, customer characteristics, and competitor attractiveness on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are studied. The moderating effects of market competition on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and the moderating effects of the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are discussed. Attempt to provide further insights into the nature of the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Customer Satisfaction
Two basic understanding of customer satisfaction, Attend to guest satisfaction definition for the customer through the knowledge of products or services provided by the sense of effect and its hope effect after compared form discovery Yue or lost hope of a psychological state. Customers will shape cognition of the performance of product or service after that. This perception, if met or exceeded expectations, customers will be satisfied or pleasantly surprised, otherwise the customer will be disappointed, complain. The other one is that customer satisfaction is a kind of psychological reaction after the customer needs to be satisfied, a product or service to meet the needs of their own degree of judgment.
Seeing the two definitions, customer satisfaction includes the customer's perception of the objective things and the emotional component of the customer's cognitive. Cognitive component refers to the customer to the product or service performance (performance) and a certain standard to compare and judge, the emotional component is the customer satisfaction, like surprise and so on. In the actual survey of customer satisfaction, due to the different purposes of the implementation, some of the customer satisfaction survey of a transaction survey, some measurement of customer satisfaction with product or service consumption.
In a word, this research take customer satisfaction definition for customer to service consumption by the calendar of recognition for cognitive and emotional sense evaluation and shaped into pleasure or disappointed feeling sleep state.
2.2 Customer Loyalty
The first study defines customer loyalty from a behavioral point of view, thinking that customer loyalty is customers keep consuming some product or service times and times. Jill Griffin pides customer loyalty into 4 types according to the behavior orientation and the attitude orientation, and they are lack of loyalty, false loyalty, potential loyalty and ideal loyalty. Olive believes that customer loyalty should be accompanied by rebuying behavior with high attitude, whose formation is a gradual process, experiencing 4 stages of cognitive loyalty, affective loyalty, intention loyalty and behavior loyalty one after another. Here behavior loyalty is different from rebuying behavior, referring to the transformation of intention to loyalty, is the sublimation of the first 3 stages of the loyalty.