Examining Paid Mobile Application Customer Loyalty: The Moderating Effect of Switching Costs

Abstract

The mobile application industry has more actions and services in recent years due to consumer demand.The purpose of this study is to explain the relationships among perceived value, satisfaction, and customer loyalty in the paid mobile application industry. Moreover, this studydevelops and testsa conceptual model that offer a value perspective in understanding customer loyalty toward paid mobile applications. Toachieve this aim, perceived value and customer satisfaction must be measured and “switching costs” identified. This study also takes a value component perspective from Bernardo, Marimon and del Mar Alonso-Almeida (2012) to confirm how the two types of switching costs (monetary vs. nonmonetary switching costs) moderate the link in perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty in the instance of a paid entertainment mobile application. The results from an online survey indicate that the switching costs had a moderating effect on the relationship between perceived value and loyalty, and the satisfaction and loyalty of using paid mobile applications. With respect to the findings, the moderating effect of switching cost play a critical role in determining customer loyalty of paid mobile applications. It also revealed that nonmonetary switching costs has more importance than monetary switching costs in engendering loyalty, since monetary contains price in the download paid mobile applications, which provides negative outcomes among the relationship of perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty. In the conclusion, the implications of these findings are discussed.