KOREASCHOLAR

Satisfaction paradox indicates customer satisfaction does not necessarily translate into customer repurchase. Competitor’s attractiveness and customer demographics are two main moderators for the paradoxical phenomenon. Competitor’s attractiveness exhibits customer switching effect, whereas customer demographics imply customers moored with their current service provider. Still, the cases were few investigated in B2B settings where customers are in general more complex than consumers as involving more intricate organizational network influences. In a business network, transactions may incur buyer/seller relational activities that mitigate paradoxical behavior. Nonetheless, the variable is yet identified and the interacting effects between the moderating variables are not clarified. Thus, this study aims to develop an operational model to classify satisfied customers into loyal, moored and paradoxical segments using three genres of moderators: competitor’s attractiveness, organizational and transactional variables in a B2B setting. In the model, the theoretical bases of switching behaviors are applied for four statistical analysis executed in a logic sequence, including a factor analysis to consolidate quality measurements, a quadrant analysis to locate the effect of competitor’s attractiveness, a clustering analysis to segment satisfied customers into four segments, and finally, nonparametric tests to validate the organizational and transactional segmentation variables. Empirically, we study Taiwanese manufacturers who engaged in global trade and have had experiences in choosing the global air express services that form an oligopolistic market and a strategic group so competitor’s attractiveness can be better calibrated. A total of 180 valid samples are collected and analyzed. The results contribute to the literatures of B2B service marketing.

• Ming-Chih Tsai(National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan)
• Rico Merkert(The University of Sydney Business School, Australia)
• Shiau-Chi Lin(National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan)
• Mei-Ting Tsai(National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan)