FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER LOYALTY FOR MOBILE SERVICE PROVIDERS

Abstract

Intense competition in the mobile services market encourages these service providers to take measures to create, maintain and enhance consumer loyalty. In such a concentrated market, it becomes important for service providers to identify and enhance the factors determining customer loyalty and their expression, whereas maintaining existing users requires significantly less effort and financial, human and time resources than attracting new ones. This article deals with a case study of Lithuania’s mobile operators: UAB “Bitė Lietuva”, UAB “Tele2”, UAB “Telia” in the context of consumer loyalty. The paper raises the question of what factors influence mobile phone user loyalty and how these factors can be evaluated. The article presents theoretical analysis of factors determining consumer loyalty in the service sector. An expert evaluation and multi-criteria study reveals which loyalty factors have the strongest influence on customers of mobile operators when choosing a particular service provider in Lithuania. The relevance of this article has potential for a practical study of consumer loyalty factors in the future. In the future, the research may be continued on a larger scale, involving more companies in the telecommunications sector, choosing research methods that are suitable for a broader sample of research and formulating consumer loyalty enhancement solutions applicable exclusively to organizations in the industry.