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dissatisfaction, consumers can simply remain inactive and take no action at all (Day, 1984;
Gronhaug & Gilly, 1991). One rationale for such an occurrence is that the costs of changing to
an alternative provider act as disincentives or obstacles to switching. These costs, which can be
also described as switching barriers, help service providers prevent customer switching in a
negative situation (e.g., a temporary decline in service quality or a service failure) (Tsai et al.,
2006). These switching barriers give the service provider time to recover/rebuild adequate
satisfaction levels before switching actions (Burnham et al., 2003). Switching barriers act as
disincentives for customers to switch to a new potential service provider that offers comparable
prices or benefits. Thus, in the current competitive environment, identifying alternative means of
inhibiting customer switching, such as switching barriers, is particularly useful for retaining
customers in the service industry (Bateson & Hoffman, 1999; Ranaweera & Prabhu, 2003).
Broadly, Jones et al. (2000) defined switching barriers as all factors that make it more
difficult and costly for customers to chang service providers. Similarly, Colgate and Lang
(2001) indicated that switching barriers explain why customers who have seriously considered
exiting the relationship with their current service provider, decide to stay with their provider.
Thus, they viewed switching barriers as factors influencing customer retention. However, some
researchers argued that switching barriers should be described as the degree to which customers
experience a sense of being locked into a relationship with a provider based on the various costs
(e.g., economic, social, or psychological costs) associated with exiting the relationship with a
particular service provider (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Barnes, 1994; Bendapudi & Berry, 1997).
These researchers focused mainly on the negative scope of switching barriers, viewing the
relationship based on switching barriers as pseudo-relationships that make customers feel
entrapped (Barnes, 1994; Jones et al., 2000). That is, customers remain with their current
provider only because of high switching costs.
However, the positive scope of switching barriers should also be considered because
some affirmative aspects of the barriers make it difficult for customers to leave a current service
provider. For instance, relational benefits (e.g., social benefits, confidence benefits, and special
treatment benefits), stemming from a valued long-term relationship with a provider, considered
more important than service performance (Gwinner et al., 1998; Henning-Thurau et al., 2002),
also work as constraints that prevent customer switching (Jones et al., 2000; Vazquez-Carrasco
& Foxall, 2006). As another example, loyalty program benefits, such as hard benefits (e.g., point
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