Customer loyalty in telecom service sector: the role of service quality and customer commitment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms can influence customer loyalty through customer commitment by leveraging two constructs of service quality: service assurance and service reliability. Design/methodology/approach The analyses are based on 138 responses retrieved from experienced users of mobile phone services in one of the big cities in the South-eastern part of Nigeria through a survey questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the measurement model as well as the proposed hypotheses were examined through the partial least squares structural equation modelling procedure. Findings Service reliability is a direct predictor of customer loyalty while service assurance is not. Affective commitment has a direct positive effect on customer loyalty and partially mediates the relationship between service reliability and customer loyalty. In contrast, the mediating effects of affective and continuance commitment on the relationship between service assurance and customer loyalty were positive but insignificant. Finally, affective commitment mediates the effect of continuance commitment on customer loyalty. Research limitations/implications The mediating role of the individual components of commitment in the links between the individual dimensions of service quality and customer loyalty is largely untested in the literature. This line of inquiry can form the basis for future research proposals. Additionally, the outcomes that emerged from this research must be interpreted with caution due to the size of the sample on which analyses were based. Future research should employ larger samples. Practical implications Services organisations especially telecommunication firms may benefit from customer loyalty by pursuing a combined strategy of increasing service assurance, service reliability, affective commitment and continuance commitment both independently and in tandem. Originality/value As far as could be established, this paper is the first to explore the mediating effects of affective and continuance commitment on the links between service quality dimensions and customer loyalty.