Switching behavior and customer satisfaction in mobile services: Analyzing virtual and traditional operators

• The results show low switching costs in the mobile services sector.
• Mobile providers should focus their efforts toward attracting new customers.
• Mobile providers should not focus on retaining existing customers.
• Service value and corporate image are the key variables for customer satisfaction.
• There is a lack of switching costs for traditional mobile services.

The present study analyses the creation of customer satisfaction and loyalty, along with the influence of switching costs in the mobile services’ market by comparing network – the so-called traditional – and virtual mobile services, in order to empirically and conceptually investigate the difference between these mobile services’ operators.For this purpose we tested a conceptual model by developing structural equation modeling, in the context of a mature market– Spain– gathering a sample of 406 mobile phone users. The analysis highlights that both service value and corporate image exert the strongest influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty both for traditional and virtual mobile services, despite some relevant differences were found regarding switching costs. Since our findings show low switching costs, mobile service providers should focus their marketing efforts toward attracting new customers and increasing the primary demand, rather than retaining their existing customers.