摘要：The main purpose of this paper is to develop a new model to investigate the effects of customer satisfaction, image and trust on customer commitment and explore the impacts of customer commitment on customer advocacy behaviors, including word-of-mouth referrals, increasing repurchase intentions, sharing information and marketing research support. In this new model, an online survey was used with a sample of 466 students of Shiraz Engineering University (IRAN) using SAMSUNG cell phone. The male/female ratio of the sample was 58.7 and 41.3%, respectively. In the sample, 72.4% were in their 20s and 27.6% were in their 27s. The questions used in this study were taken from the relevant literature, contained 53 questions addressing all the variables: customer satisfaction (4 items), image (5 items), trust (9 items), customer commitment (5 items), word-of-mouth referrals (10 items), repurchase intentions (8 items), information sharing (7 items) and marketing research support (5 items). The data were screened using the SPSS program (Version 11). Finally, descriptive-correlative methodology was used in this study. The research found significant positive relationships between customer satisfaction, image, trust and customer commitment. The findings suggest that customer commitment most influenced by customer satisfaction (45%), image (37%) and trust (18%). Beside, the findings illustrate that customers with stronger levels of commitment are indeed more willing to contribute as customer advocates. This study shows that the most impacts of customer commitment are on word-of-mouth referrals (35%), repurchase intentions (29%), information sharing (23%) and marketing research support (13%). Of course all of the eight hypotheses were supported. Further research is encouraged on the relative importance of the customer satisfaction, image, trust' influence on customer commitment in global markets and expanded view of customer advocacy. Researchers are also advised to regard this work as a starting-point for expanded hypotheses development of future customer advocacy models. The study considers the potential for how business customers can be further engaged to serve as advocates and thereby help improve the firm’s marketing performance. This study implies the major influence of customer satisfaction and the minor influence of trust on customer commitment and also implies the major impact of customer commitment on word-of-mouth and the minor influence of customer commitment on marketing research support. The paper introduces new context relevant concepts and advances the relationship marketing literature by providing empirical evidence for the multi-dimensional view of customer advocacy behaviors.
关键词：Customer satisfaction; image; trust; customer commitment; word-of-mouth referrals; repurchase intentions; information sharing; marketing research support
