客户关系动力学：服务品质与顾客忠诚情况下,不同程度的客户专业知识和转换成本【外文翻译】

外文翻译原文Customer Relationship Dynamics:Service Quality and Customer Loyalty in the Context of Varying Levels of Customer Expertise and Switching CostsMaterial Source: Author: University of Cambridge,United Kingdom; Simon J. Bell Brock University, Canada; Seigyoung Auh University of Melbourne, Australia Karen Smalley As customer-organization relationships deepen,consumers increase their expertise in the firm's product line and industry and develop increased switching costs. This study investigates the effects of customer investment expertise and perceived switching costs on the relationships between technical and functional service quality and customer loyalty.Technical service quality is hypothesized to be a more important determinant of customer loyalty than functional service quality as expertise increases. Both technical and functional service quality are hypothesized to have a reduced relationship with customer loyalty as perceived switching costs increase.Three-way interactions between the main effects of service quality, customer expertise,and pemeived switching costs yield additional insight into the change in relative importance of technical and functional service quality in customers'decision to be loyal. Six of eight hypotheses receive support, hnplications are discussed for customer relationship management over the relationship life cycle.Keywords: service quality; loyalty; customer expertise; switching costsThe contribution that a high level of service quality can make to business performance is unquestioned.In mature industries characterized by parity products, very often it is service quality that distinguishes an organization from its rivals. Not surprisingly, the elevated importance of service quality is underscored in both the trade and academic literatures.The conceptual arguments proposed, for example, by Heskett, Jones,Leveman,Sasser,and Schlesinger (1994) designate service quality as the mainstay around hich nternal organization and business performance revolve -s.Indeed,most of the relationships proposed within their framework (some of which are considered almost axiomatic by marketing researchers) have support within theliterature.Service quality has been linked to many and varied business performance metrics,including customer satisfaction,loyalty,word-of-mouth referral, price insensi -tivity,sales growth, and market share (e.g.,Boulding,Kalra,Staelin,and Zeithaml 1993;Rust and Zahorik 1993; Rust, Zahorik,and Keiningham 1995; Woodside,Frey,a -nd Daly 1989;Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman 1996).The service product is not a static concept, however. Consistent with Levitt's (1986) notion of the augmented product, perceptions of the relative importance of service attributes will vary, not only between market segments but also by the same clients over time.As businesses pursue long-term relationships with customers to maximize their lifetime value, they need to be particularly concerned with how customers' view of the service offering changes over time.More recently, scholars have begun to consider the importance of managing a firm's portfolio of customers as the nature of the customer-firm relationships changes (Johnson and Seines 2004). Such studies underscore the need for dynamic models of exchange relationships.Tak --ing our lead from such research, we consider how customers' perceptions of servic -e quality vary with differing levels of perceived switching costs and expertis--two factors that are likely to change over the life of a customer's relationship with an organization.As relationships extend, two important changes occur. First, customers become more experienced with both the organization with which they are transacting (e.g., product attributes, procedures, rules, and norms) and the market in which the organi -zation competes (e.g., competitors' products, industry pricing practices) (Heilman, Bowman, and Wright 2000). Doubtless this will vary from one customer to the next. However, there will be some learning effects for all clients by virtue of consistent and repeated transactions with an organization in a given product category. Experien -tial models of individual learning support the notion that an individual's performance and knowledge will improve as they are exposed to, and reflect upon, certain events (Kolb 1984). Long-term relationships lead to an increase in client confidence about what they can expect to receive from the firm (Gwinner, Gremler, and Bitner 1998).A second important change that is likely to occur in long-term relationships is the escalation in the size and complexity of the transactions between the two parties (Reinartz and Kumar 2003).Indeed, this is often considered a core benefit if not a fundamental goal of a relationship marketing strategy. A relationship with a bank for example,might begin with a student savings account, extending to a checking andcredit account once a salary is earned, developing to home loans and other financial instruments when certain savings targets have been achieved. There is an increase, not only in the size and number of clients' transactions but also in the firm-specific or idiosyncratic knowledge that make transactions more ficient for both parties.GwI -nner et al. (1998), for example, suggest that long-term relationships lead to addition -nal benefits for customers such as increased confidence in the product, social engag -ement, and improved opportunities forcustomization. In other words, long-term clients get to know the service provider on a personal level, have less anxiety about service performance,and can come to expect preferential treatment as the f'trrn gets to know their preferences better. Accordingly, relationship length leads to the accum -ulation of "side bets" or switching barriers as perceived by clients (Becker 1960; Jones, Mothersbaugh, and Beatty 2002).While there are likely to be many implications of such developments, we are particularly interested in the implications for the nature of the service provided. Do increases in customer sophistication and switching barriers alter the way service qua -ilty is perceived and, hence, the client's overall satisfaction with the firm? Specifica -lly, we seek to understand how customer expertise and perceived switching costs affect the relative importance of the functional and technical components of service quality in determining customers' loyalty to a firm.This article is constructed in the following way. First, we provide some background to the study before discussing our model and hypotheses in more detail. We then turn to the finance industry (stockbroking) as the context for testing our hypothesized model.We survey clients of a global financial services firm, measure -ing their perceptions of functional and technical service quality, perceived switchin -g costs and investment expertise, and their loyalty to the f'Lrrn. This research settin -g provides a good opportunity for testing our model for a number of reasons. Stock -broking services are high in credence properties, which suggest an important role for client expertise in affecting the way service is evaluated. Furthermore,as a highin -volvement product, both technical and functional elements of service quality will feature prominently in clients' valuation of the firm and its advisers (Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990). Finally, switching costs will be particularly relevant given the potential in this industry or building personal ties,relationship learning,and aking relationship-specific investments (Burnham, Frels and Mahajan 2003).After present -ing our results, we conclude with a discussion of some managerial implications for adjusting relationship marketing strategies in order to maximize customer retention.译文客户关系动力学：服务品质与顾客忠诚情况下,不同程度的客户专业知识和转换成本资料来源: 剑桥大学，英国；作者：Simon J. Bell 布鲁克大学，加拿大； Seigyoung Auh墨尔本大学，澳大利亚； Karen Smalley 当顾客组织关系加深，消费者会增加他们在公司的产品系列和产业上的专业技术，并且开发增加转化成本。