Determinants of attitudinal loyalty in Nigerian telecom service sector: Does commitment play a mediating role?

•The process through which attitudinal loyalty evolves was modelled and tested.•The proposed model explained 69 per cent of the total variance in attitudinal loyalty.•Service assurance does not have a direct effect on attitudinal loyalty.•Service assurance has an indirect positive effect on attitudinal loyalty through service reliability.•Service reliability has a direct and indirect positive effect on attitudinal loyalty through customer commitment.

This paper explores the mediating role of commitment in the relationships between service assurance, service reliability and attitudinal loyalty. A quantitative cross-sectional data generated from 138 experienced users of telecommunication services formed the final database. Attitudinal loyalty was found to be a process-based construct that starts from service assurance and proceeds to service reliability and finally to customer commitment and loyalty. The entire process explained 69 per cent of the total variance in attitudinal loyalty. The relationship between service assurance and attitudinal loyalty was insignificant. No support was found for the proposed mediating role of customer commitment in the relationship between service assurance and attitudinal loyalty. In contrast, the relationship between service assurance and attitudinal loyalty was fully mediated by service reliability. Finally, service reliability was both directly and indirectly related to attitudinal loyalty through customer commitment. To attract customers' attitudinal loyalty therefore, services companies especially those within the low-contact service category must deliver reliable services and make efforts to assure customers that their services are reliable. The implications for customer loyalty theory and future research are also discussed.