Premium
Customer retention when the customer's future usage is uncertain
Author(s) -
White Tiffany Barnett,
Lemon Katherine N.,
Hogan John E.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
psychology and marketing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.035
H-Index - 116
eISSN - 1520-6793
pISSN - 0742-6046
DOI - 10.1002/mar.20187
Subject(s) - regret , customer retention , business , flexibility (engineering) , marketing , customer service , drop out , customer satisfaction , customer to customer , customer advocacy , service (business) , service quality , computer science , economics , management , demographic economics , machine learning
Consumers are often uncertain about how much they will use a service in the future (e.g., health clubs, credit cards, cell phones), yet the effects of this uncertainty on customer retention have not been studied. This research investigates factors influencing consumers' decisions about whether to retain noncontractual services for which anticipated future usage levels are uncertain. The studies show that Future Usage Uncertainty (FUU) generally reduces the likelihood that a customer will continue in a service relationship. However, when consumers consider the flexibility they have to delay the keep/drop decision (i.e., drop flexibility), or the anticipated regret associated with making the wrong decision, the effects of FUU are essentially eliminated, and consumers are more likely to continue in the relationship. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.