Relationship between Loyalty and Satisfaction in Financial Customers

In literary terms, satisfaction is considered to be an antecedent in the behavior of customer loyalty (Rust & Oliver, 1994) and allows the company to maintain and encourage long-term relationships and improve profitability and customer loyalty (Shankar et al.

Different studies find that facilitating customer satisfaction allows the company to maintain and favour long-term relationships as well as improve profitability and customer loyalty. In order to achieve this objective more easily, banks take ac­tions of segmentation allowing the identification of critical elements for a particular segment so that it enhances the propositions of value which it identifies as keys.

As seen from the different studies analyzed and the review of scientific literature on extract­ing groups of consumers, in recent years different studies have focused on obtaining user segments of services offline (eg, Karjaluoto et al., 2002; Cameron et al., 2006) and online (eg Munoz-Leiva et al., 2010).

For some time, various authors have investi­gated the influence of expectations on satisfaction. Under the classical paradigm of disconfirmation of expectations (EDT) the conclusion is that sat­isfaction is formed from the comparison between the results of the experience gained and previous expectations (Oliver, 1980; 1981), resulting in a gap or difference between both called disconfir­mation of expectations. There will be positive disconfirmation when the result of that difference exceeds expectations, whereas disconfirmation will be negative if the result does not reach the level of expectations. Therefore, we can conclude that there will be satisfaction when generating positive disconfirmation, while dissatisfaction will appear with negative disconfirmation and, consequently, positive or negative attitude respec­tively, increasing the likelihood of the e-Banking customer dropping out, thus favouring defection to other competitors in the financial sector.

Moliner (2004) summarizes the two major determinants of EDT approaches.

Meanwhile, satisfaction will be influenced by the pre-purchase attitude that the expectations generated (Howard, 1974). According to this relationship between satisfaction and attitude, the model of Howard (1974) finds that satisfaction judgments create attitudes and intentions about future purchasing behavior, so this conditions the future business relationship with the financial in­stitution. Moreover, this attitude is affected by the degree of satisfaction created from disconfirma­tion of expectations, resulting in a post-purchase attitude which, combined with the prior intention, leads to a further intention that causes certain behaviors (Miller, 2004).

Therefore, our research will take specific transaction approach, defining satisfaction as a general attitude manifested by consumers in rela­tion to their experience of purchasing behavior.