The mediating relationship of customer satisfaction between brand trust, brand social responsibility image with moderating role of switching cost

Abstract

In today’s’ resilient market competition, manufacturers of fast moving consumer goods are putting their best efforts to maintain brand loyalty. Despite the effectiveness of brand loyalty to increase sales, due to the availability of alternatives at large, recent trends indicate that brand loyalty among customers is decreasing. That is why there is a need to develop a framework that can increase brand loyalty to reduce marketing cost. We used customer satisfaction as a mediating variable between brand trust, brand social responsibility and brand loyalty. Furthermore, the role of switching cost as moderating variable has been assessed on the relationship of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Data was collected from buyers of fast moving consumer goods (milk brands) from different retail stores in Pakistan. Systematic random sampling was used. The methodology used is a descriptive analysis followed by structural equation modelling to test the hypothesis. Results showed that customer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship of brand trust, brand social responsibility image and brand loyalty. Moreover, switching cost when studied as moderator in fast moving consumer goods is insignificant on the relationship of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. It is, therefore, other than satisfying their customers, managers need to develop trust and social responsibility image of the brand to make them brand loyal. Furthermore, managers need to focus on creating switching barriers other than cost to make satisfied customer brand loyal.