The impact of relationship quality on customer citizenship behavior: an SEM, XGBoost and SHAP analysis of Home Inn customers

This study examines the impact of customer relationship quality on customer citizenship behavior with Home Inn’ customers as the research object. Through structural equation modeling (SEM), XGBoost and SHAP value analyses, the study found that customer satisfaction, trust, commitment and perceived value all have a significant positive impact on customer citizenship behavior.XGBoost model and SHAP value analyses further revealed that commitment plays a key role in promoting customer citizenship behavior, with an impact that far outweighs satisfaction, trust and perceived value. The findings suggest that hotels should take enhancing customer commitment as a core strategy to stimulate positive customer behaviors and promote healthy and sustainable customer relationships by providing quality services and implementing member benefits. Future research could explore cross-industry or cross-cultural generalities, use longitudinal data and dynamic models, and integrate actual behavioral data to enhance the objectivity and robustness of the study.