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Given a product or service, the number of its installed user base has a significant positive effect on the existing users’ loyalty and new users’ conversion. This effect is conceptualized as network externalities in economics. Network externalities are supposed to be particularly striking in nowadays online business-to-business (B2B) platforms, but yet the mystery behind their effects on user loyalty to online B2B platforms remains to be delicately unraveled. The purpose of this paper is to discover the factors driving users’ loyalty, especially buyers’ loyalty, to online B2B platforms, by highlighting the impacts of network externalities on loyalty and other mediating factors.

A conceptual model of buyer loyalty under network externalities is elaborated. The reliability and validity of the instruments of the latent model constructs are assessed by confirmatory factor analysis, and the hypothesized causal relationships among the constructs are tested by structural equation modeling, on 710 valid buyer samples collected from a famous online B2B platform in China.

The analysis demonstrates that: perceived value, user satisfaction and switching costs are the major predictors of buyer loyalty to online B2B platforms characterized by network externalities; network externalities positively account for buyer loyalty by contributing to perceived value, user satisfaction and switching costs; and direct network externality (measured by perceived network size and perceived external prestige) has a significant effect on indirect network externality (measured by perceived compatibility and perceived complementarity).

The findings allow the authors to conclude meaningful managerial implications for online B2B service providers to build up loyal user bases through improving users’ perceptions of network externalities, switching costs and value.

This study seeks to extend current research by testing a framework for understanding the impact of perceived suppliers' willingness for customization, effective communication, and trust regarding perceived switching costs.

Research data were collected from electronics firms in Taiwan; 281 questionnaires were collected. Structural equation model (SEM) analysis was applied to the data.

The study suggests that perceived trust contributes to perceived switching costs. The perceived willingness of a supplier to customize for a buyer can indirectly impact on perceived switching costs by way of perceived trust toward the supplier. Furthermore, analysis of the direct and indirect effects reveals that effective communication plays a dominant role and has a significant influence on trust and perceived switching costs.

While recent research increasingly examines customer switching costs in terms of antecedents, this study provides greater insight into switching costs from the trust‐forming perspective to ensure customer retention.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the relationship between switching costs and customer loyalty in e‐commerce.

The study conducted an empirical research. A total of 425 online shopping customers were invited from northeastern USA as samples.

The findings show that switching costs positively influence customer loyalty. In addition, perceived risks will affect the relationship of switching costs and customer loyalty. For customers with low perceived risks, switching costs are also positively associated with customer loyalty. However, for customers with high perceived risks, the relationship of switching costs and customer loyalty is weak or negative.

One limitation is that mostly students were selected in the sample. The insights of this study can further validate the previous studies about the relationship of switching costs and customer loyalty, and suggest that perceived risks can be a moderating factor affecting this relationship.

The study suggests that the practitioners should further understand the relationship among switching costs, perceived risks and customer loyalty for their customers.

The paper contributes to the knowledge of perceived risks and how switching costs affect customer loyalty, particularly in e‐commerce.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderator effects of switching costs, classified by type (relational, procedural, and financial) and direction (positive and negative), on the relationships between customer-perceived value, trust, and loyalty.

This study reports on quantitative data from a survey of two service contexts which vary in their degree of customer-employee contact and customization. In total, 360 usable questionnaires were collected, and the data were analyzed using multi-group structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrate that switching costs moderate, in different ways, the relationships between customer loyalty, trust and perceived value. Moreover, the strength of the moderator effects vary according to service type.

This study provides new insight into understanding the moderating role of switching costs thus, reduces inconsistencies about the direction and the strength of the moderator effect of switching costs in loyalty frameworks.

This study helps managers choose the most effective loyalty strategy for specific service industries and perceptions of switching costs, and to look beyond their service boundaries in order to cross-fertilize strategies for handling switching costs.

No empirical study to date has simultaneously examined the moderator effect of switching costs classified by type and direction on the relationships between customer-perceived value, trust, and customer loyalty across two different service contexts in a single framework.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a model in which the perceived post-purchase monetary costs and time costs of switching from a pioneer product are a function of the perceived difficulty of comparing follower products with the pioneer product, the variety of ways in which the pioneer product is used by an adopter, pioneer adopter satisfaction with the pioneer, the familiarity of the pioneer adopter with follower products and the anticipated reactions to switching of other household members who use the pioneer product.

The authors test this model with data collected from 518 Japanese iPad owners. Hypotheses are evaluated using structural equation modeling.

The authors find that each of the hypothesized independent variables is related in the hypothesized direction with one or both types of switching costs.

Findings indicate that the variety of pioneer product use, the perceived negative reaction of other household users of the pioneer product and comparison difficulties between the pioneer and follower product have an important influence on the perceptions of the perceived costs of switching from a pioneer to a follower product.

Findings suggest that managers responsible for launching follower products can lower the perceived costs of switching from a pioneer product through specific product design and communication decisions.

In contrast with prior switching-cost research, this paper focuses on switching costs as perceived by pioneer adopters and examining the importance of pioneer-follower product comparison difficulties, the variety of pioneer product use and the negative reactions of other household users of the pioneer product.

In the services marketing literature it has been argued that the concept of service loyalty needs further conceptual and empirical investigation. In this paper a theoretical framework for service loyalty consisting of three dimensions: preference loyalty; price indifference loyalty; and dissatisfaction response is developed. We subsequently focus on the role of service quality and switching costs as antecedents to these types of service loyalty. The results of an empirical study of a large sample of customers from five different service industries provide support for service loyalty as a three‐dimensional construct. Moreover, we find that the influence of service quality on service loyalty varies significantly per industry and that, hence, findings from one industry cannot be generalised to other industries. Furthermore, we establish that in industries characterised by relatively low switching costs, customers will be less loyal as compared to service industries with relatively high switching costs.

The purpose of this paper is to link customer satisfaction, switching intentions, perceived switching costs, and perceived alternative attractiveness in the context of the Bangladeshi mobile telecommunications market (MTM). In addition, this study develops three key formative determinants of customer satisfaction: financial factor, technological factor, and customer service factor.

A model is developed and tested using PLS-SEM with a sample size of 442 respondents. The three key formative determinants of customer satisfaction were developed using a panel of five industry experts.

Financial, technological, and customer service factors were found to have significant positive effects on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction and perceived switching costs were found to have a significant direct effect on switching intentions, and perceived switching costs and perceived alternative attractiveness were found to have significant moderating effects on switching intentions through customer satisfaction. However, no significant direct effect of perceived alternative attractiveness on switching intentions was found.

This is the first study to link customer satisfaction, switching intentions, perceived switching costs, and perceived alternative attractiveness using structural equation modeling in the context of the Bangladeshi MTM. In addition, three key formative determinants of customer satisfaction are developed.

The objective of this study is to examine the effect of corporate image, perceived value, and switching costs on customer loyalty in customer/provider relationships of different length.

Five key constructs, namely: corporate image, perceived value, switching costs, customer loyalty, and length of relationship, were employed. Using a systematic sampling technique, student interviewers randomly approached customers exiting hair salons. The final survey sample consisted of 279 respondents.

This paper supports a contingency model with regard to customer loyalty and its antecedents. The results suggest that corporate image impacts customer loyalty in both newer and older relationships. Whereas in newer relationships, corporate image has a cardinal influence on switching costs, in more‐established relationships switching costs are influenced primarily by perceived value. In both cases, switching costs influence customer loyalty.

As extant research claims that relationship quality, and not length, moderates the relationship between loyalty/repurchase behavior and their antecedents, future research could adopt relationship quality as a moderator to test the model of the present study.

The results support the importance of enhancing corporate image to retain newer customers. In longer‐established relationships, corporate image remains a determinant of repurchase decisions. However, customer value also has a significant influence on switching costs and loyalty.

The current study moves beyond customer‐perceived value, switching costs, and corporate image to demonstrate that relationship length has a significant influence on customer loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of three different dimensions of switching costs on customer dissatisfaction response styles as well as on the evaluation of service recovery.

Study 1 is a scenario-based experiment and Study 2 uses a critical incident technique combined with survey-based measures of switching costs, dissatisfaction responses and perceived complaint handling.

The results of these studies highlight the need to consider the different effects of switching costs. Not only do different switching costs lead to varying customer dissatisfaction responses, they also have differential moderator effects on the interrelationships between customer-perceived recovery justice and service recovery satisfaction.

Service failure severity was an influential control variable. Future studies should investigate how the type, context and severity of service failure influence customers’ complaint behavior. Furthermore, participants had trouble differentiating between their relations toward their service provider in general and one particular employee. Hence, further research should explore the relationship between customers and frontline employees.

The authors encourage managers to take a closer look at the switching cost dimensions of their service industry. This may lead practitioners to promote differentiated strategies for complaint stimulation and complaint handling.

This is the first study to simultaneously explore all three dimensions of switching costs when examining their impact on customers’ dissatisfaction response styles as well as the moderating effects in the recovery process. In doing so, this study reveals some hitherto uncovered effects.

In the GSM mobile telephony sector, the main condition for protecting the subscriber base is to win customer loyalty, a key necessity for the maintenance of a brand's life in the long term. To achieve this aim, customer satisfaction and trust must be measured and “switching costs” identified. The latter render subscribers' preference for rival operators more expensive. In this connection, this paper's aim is to measure the effects of customer satisfaction and trust on customer loyalty, and the direct and indirect effect of “switching cost” on customer loyalty.

The data set covered 1,662 mobile phone users in Turkey. The data were analyzed by moderated regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

The findings of this study show that the switching cost factor directly affects loyalty, and has a moderator effect on both customer satisfaction and trust. Therefore, it plays a crucial role in winning customer loyalty. In short, it is a quasi moderator. However, switching costs was measured as a unidimensional factor, but switching costs in fact contains psychological, financial and procedural sub‐dimensions. Therefore, future research might measure the sub‐dimensions of switching costs and examine their moderating effects.

With respect to the findings, trust has more importance than customer satisfaction in engendering loyalty, since trust contains belief in the brand, which provides positive outcomes not only in the present but also in the future. But customer satisfaction does not contain this dimension. So, the effect of trust on loyalty becomes greater than the effect of customer satisfaction. Therefore, any GSM operator who wishes to preserve its existing subscriber base should concentrate on winning its subscribers’ trust.