Keyword

customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, mobile telecommunications, Zambia

Abstract

          This paper explores the extent to which customer satisfaction, service quality, customer service, price, corporate image, and network coverage influence customer loyalty in the mobile telecommunications industry in the emerging market country of Zambia. The study is important because emerging market countries including Zambia present a contextual setting in which there has been very high growth in mobile phone penetration within a short period of time. Based on survey data from a convenience sample of 221 mobile subscribers, and using partial least squares analysis, the study found that the antecedents of customer satisfaction (i.e., service quality, customer service, corporate image, price, and network coverage) explained 54% of the variance in customer satisfaction while customer satisfaction itself explained 37.4% of the variance in customer loyalty. Though service quality, customer service, corporate image, and network coverage were positively related to customer satisfaction as expected, there was no evidence to support the hypothesized negative relationship between the price level and customer satisfaction. 


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