Scale library · Consumer behavior

Behavioral intentions battery: Zeithaml et al. (1996)

The behavioral-intentions battery was built by Zeithaml, Berry and Parasuraman (1996) to test how service quality affects whether customers stay with or leave a firm. Its 13 items split into five factors: loyalty, switch, pay more, external response and internal response. Loyalty (5 items) is the most stable factor, with alphas of .93 to .94 in the original study. It is often a dependent variable in theses on service quality, satisfaction and loyalty among bank, hotel, retail and telecom customers.

Cite the original, not the blog.

Original English items

Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.

Loyalty (LOY, 5 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
LOY1 Say positive things about XYZ to other people. No
LOY2 Recommend XYZ to someone who seeks your advice. No
LOY3 Encourage friends and relatives to do business with XYZ. No
LOY4 Consider XYZ your first choice to buy --- services. No
LOY5 Do more business with XYZ in the next few years. No

Switch (SWI, 2 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
SWI1 (R) Do less business with XYZ in the next few years. Yes
SWI2 (R) Take some of your business to a competitor that offers better prices. Yes

Pay More (PAY, 2 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
PAY1 Continue to do business with XYZ if its prices increase somewhat. No
PAY2 Pay a higher price than competitors charge for the benefits you currently receive from XYZ. No

External Response (EXT, 3 items)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
EXT1 Switch to a competitor if you experience a problem with XYZ's service. No
EXT2 Complain to other customers if you experience a problem with XYZ's service. No
EXT3 Complain to external agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, if you experience a problem with XYZ's service. No

Internal Response (INT, 1 item)

Code Item wording Reverse-coded
INT1 Complain to XYZ's employees if you experience a problem with XYZ's service. No

Response scale

7-point likelihood scale (1 = Not at all likely … 7 = Extremely likely), following Zeithaml et al. (1996). The stem is typically 'How likely are you to …?'.

Recoding reverse-coded items: 1–7 scale: new score = 1 + 7 − score = 8 − score. Reverse only when combining SWI into an overall loyalty score; keep it as is when analysing SWI as a separate factor.

Licence and permission

The items are published in Table 1 of the original article and widely used in research. Cite the original article; we found no separate licensing conditions for non-commercial academic use.

Sources (APA 7)

Vietnamese translation

A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.

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