Investigating the Impact of Barriers to Customers' Switching on Their Loyalty: A Case Study of Mellat Bank Customers in Tehran

The growing increase of commercial banks has raised some concerns about customer switching especially for well-known and old banks. Among these banks, Mellat bank has a history of 38 years and a capital of 50 trillion. The problem of customer switching may result in decreased loyalty of its customers and their increased tendency for other banks. The present research focuses on the switching barriers and their impacts on the loyalty of Mellat bank customers in Tehran. It is a functional study based on description and correlation. The population of the study consists of all the customers of Mellat banks inTehran who have at least once used the services of this bank. According to the Cochran equation, the sample size was determined to be 385. The sampling method was clustering. A designed questionnaire was distributed among 480 customers of different branches of the bank in Tehran. The model fitness and the study hypotheses were dealt with by modelling structural equilibriums. The results showed the significant effects of different variables related to switching barriers (i.e. Switching Cost, Availability and Attractiveness of Alternatives, Social Benefits, Confidence Benefits and Special Treatment) on the customers’ loyalty to Mellat Banks of Tehran.