ONLINE SERVICE SWITCHING BEHAVIOR: THE CASE OF BLOG SERVICE PROVIDERS

In recent years, there have been a growing number of online social platforms which allow users to publish and share their personal stories, opinions, knowledge, expertise, and product reviews. Online service switching has become a major challenge for marketers. In this study, we attempt to understand online service switching behavior through investigating blog service switching. We use the push-pull-mooring migration framework to guide our investigation. We empirically examine three salient factors for online service switching in general. Further, we analyze survey responses to elicit specific push, pull, and mooring factors pertaining to the switching of blog service providers. The findings suggest that satisfaction, attractive alternatives, and sunk costs can significantly affect bloggers' switching intention. Dissatisfaction with service stability, attractiveness in functionality, attractiveness in ease of use, and descriptive norms are found to be the most frequently cited reasons for bloggers' switching behavior. We believe that online service providers can benefit from the findings of this research regarding how to maintain current users and attract new users. The present study extends prior research on consumer service switching by examining switching behavior in the online service context. We find that the push-pull-mooring migration framework is an effective tool in identifying factors affecting blog service switching behavior. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]