Customer perception, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty within Chinese securities business: Towards a mediation model for predicting customer behavior

This study proposes a mediation model that links customer perceived service value to customer loyalty via customer satisfaction. Psychometrically sound measures were selected and a survey was undertaken among 1,200 customers of a Chinese Securities firm with a response rate of 41%. Results show that customer satisfaction does play a mediating role upon the relationship between customer perceived service value and customer loyalty. Our study suggests that customer perceived service quality has a significant effect upon customer satisfaction; customer perception of relational benefits has a positive impact upon customer satisfaction, with trust being the most important indicator; customer satisfaction is positively related with loyalty in terms of positive word of mouth, willingness to pay more and to stay with the business. Moreover, the results indicate that the five dimensions as distinguished in SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988) are compressed within two dimensions-IT provision and service attitude. Our outcomes suggest that managers should initiate service policies aimed at securing improvement in customer satisfaction.