Evaluative and relational influences on service loyalty

Four attitudinal components of customer loyalty were synthesised from the s ervices literature and combined to produce a loyalty conceptualisation that excludes repurchase behaviour. This proposed conceptualisation of service loyalty was then modelled in two quantitative studies to determine the effe cts of potential predictors. The influence of consumers' evaluative judgeme nts was compared against the effects of relational outcomes. The three eval uative judgement measures were service encounter satisfaction, perceived co re service quality and value for money while relational measures comprised social comfort, social regard and friendship. It was found that while perso nal friendship between customer and service employee was significantly asso ciated with loyalty, service encounter satisfaction was the major predictor . It was also found that the relational factors of social comfort and socia l regard played indirect roles through their influence on customer's evalua tion of satisfaction and quality. Conversely, friendship was not related to the mediating variables of service encounter satisfaction and perceived co re service quality.