What Ties Customers to Hedonic and Utilitarian Services?

This paper develops a new conceptual framework with a complete set of relational bonds and examines how these bonds together with subjective norms and perceived difficulty influence repurchase intentions based on different service types. Drawing on existing literature and longitudinal qualitative evidence from 60 in-depth interviews a new theoretical approach is proposed which was then tested in a large scale survey study in the context of hedonic and utilitarian services. Based on the results, the drivers of repurchase intentions can be classified into three categories: 1) universal drivers of repurchase intentions that transcend service categories, 2) service specific bonds and 3) inconsequential relational bonds. These results provide guidance to managers to differentiate customer relationship strategies according to the specific service context.