The Effects of Customer Perceived Service Quality and Switching Costs on ‎Customer ‎Loyalty in Selected Private Hospitals in Tehran, Iran

The quality of the provided services impacts the existing and potential customers’ intention to ýreuse the services and their loyalty. Moreover, service providers can prevent customers from ýleaving their current organizations and switching to the competitors, through establishing ýswitching costs. This research investigated the effect of perceived service quality and customer ýswitching costs on customer loyalty in hospitals.
The current research was an applied research, and the data were collected using a questionnaire ýbased on descriptive-survey method, and structural equation modeling (SEM). In order to ýanalyze the data, SPSS and SmartPLS software were employed.
The positive and meaningful impact of perceived service quality and switching costs on customer ýloyalty was confirmed. Examination of the effect of service quality dimensions on loyalty ýshowed the positive and meaningful impact of tangible factors, trust, assurance, and empathy on ýcustomer loyalty. However, responsiveness had no impact on loyalty. In addition, the moderating ýrole of switching costs on the relation of perceived service quality with customer loyalty, and ýtangible factors, trust, assurance, and empathy with customer loyalty were confirmed.ýþ þNevertheless, the relation of responsiveness with loyalty was
not confirmed.ý
According to theþ þresearch results, it is recommended that hospitals attempt to increase the loyalty ýof their customers through improving the quality of their services, and establishing switching ýcosts.ý