Four items capture the cognitive and behavioural effort a consumer anticipates incurring when switching service providers -- specifically the need to become familiar with a new provider's policies, learn how the system works, and navigate unfamiliar procedures. The scale reflects post-switching adjustment costs rather than transition costs paid upfront, measuring the anticipated friction of re-establishing competent use of a new provider's service.
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Items were originally developed by Jones, Mothersbaugh, and Beatty (2002) with reference to a 'hairstylist/barber.' Nagengast et al. (2014) used a generalised version replacing the specific service type with 'provider.' Item 4 contains unusual syntax ('Changing providers would mean that I would have learned about the policies of a new one') -- this phrasing should be reproduced exactly as used by Nagengast et al. (2014) for scale fidelity; researchers may note this awkward phrasing as an item quality issue. The scale was applied in a retail banking context; its properties in contexts with lower procedural complexity (e.g., simple retail services) have not been verified. AVE of .84 is notably strong, indicating exceptionally high convergent validity among items.
Nagengast, L., Evanschitzky, H., Blut, M., & Rudolph, T. (2014). New insights in the moderating effect of switching costs on the satisfaction-repurchase behavior link. Journal of Retailing, 90(3), 408-427.
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