The Moderating Role of Competitor's Attractiveness and Switching Cost on the Relationship Between Price, Service Quality, and Customer Annoyance in Real Estate Sector of Sina Insurance Co

Investigating why customers switch their insurance service providers, leads to valuable information for recognizing the likely alterations in customers’ needs and expectations. This research is based on a very fundamental question: why existing customers decide to switch from one service provider to another? To answer this question, factors affecting switching intentions were derived from the literature of current and previous studies. Research data were collected by means of a questionnaire distributed among a population of customers of an insurance company for a period of 3 years. From randomly selected customers, 202 questionnaires were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling and SmartPLS software. Results showed a strong association between service quality and annoyance, on the one hand, and intention to switch service provider, on the other hand. Findings also revealed no evidence for a hypothetical relationship between price unfairness and switching intention. The same result was also found for the moderating effects of switching cost and alternative attractiveness.