CUSTOMER FAITHFULLNESS: THE MODERATING ROLE OF THE RELATIONAL BENEFITS TRILOGY

Ganesh, Arnold and Reynolds (2000) suggest that companies regard customer switching behavior as a nightmare, because such behavior threatens buyer-seller relationships, and more importantly, it decreases customer commitment and business sustainability. According to Yee (2015), one way to maintain business sustainability is to increase their customer faithfulness. Despite its importance, Akpan and Etuk (2014) point out that the investigation and integration of the concept of customer faithfulness is limited. Hence, the present study attempts to expand on customer faithfulness research by integrating and conceptualizing the mediating effect of affective commitment and moderating effect of the relationship benefits model (confidence benefits, social benefits and special treatment benefits) on customer satisfaction– customer faithfulness relationships. Phillips (2010) defines customer faithfulness as customers’ psychological evaluations which encourage customers to be more open and emotionally attached to specific brands or organizations.