The Positive Link Between Customer Commitment and Companies

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The positive effects of customer commitment on firms’ profitability have been proved by many past research. According to Bansal, Irving and Taylor (2004), customer commitment will affect customer decision in service provider switching. It may also protect the firm in Critical Incidents (Goolen and Campo 2008). It is important for firms and marketers to increase the commitment and loyalty of their customer. In order to achieve this, a deeper insight of different types of commitment should be taken. Measurement of this will also be discussed as firms need to know how much their customers are committed.

Customer commitment

Commitment, from Bansal, Irving and Taylor (2004) and Jones et al. (2010) can be defined as a desire to maintain a valued relationship by Moorman et al. (1992). It can have many different meanings in different fields like psychology, organizational behavior, and marketing, but they all appear that it has both a psychological state and a motivational phenomenon that lead to some actions (Jones et al. 2010). The commitment of customer is more forward-looking than satisfaction (Gustafsson, Johnson and Roos 2005). They are evaluating whether they should stay or switch. According to Bansal, Irving and Taylor (2004), the three-component approach suggested by Meyer and Allen can be used to explain different types of psychological state behind customer commitment. Those three components are affective, continuance and normative (Jones et al. 2010).

Affective commitment

By Gruen et al. (2000), affective commitment is a psychological bond of a customer to the organization base on good feelings (Jones et al. 2010). Customer like the firm and attached to it emotionally (Wetzels, Ruyter and Birgelen 1998). It is caused by customer satisfaction and favorable past product or service experiences (Goolen and Campo 2008). It is negatively linked to the desire of developing new alternatives (Wetzels, Ruyter and Birgelen 1998). The research...