Sustainable management and marketing : a re-evaluation of customer switching behaviour in service industries

This empirical paper describes the findings from a survey of 120 consumers on the reported causes of switching service product suppliers. Ten principal causes for switching were identified and respondents were asked to identify all of the reasons why they had switched for a recent service product purchase. The results were rank ordered and compared with the seminal study by Keaveney (1995) who used seven causes. The main similarity was the confirmation that ‘Core service failure’ was the principal cause of switching in both studies, accounting for about 30% of events. The main difference was that ‘Competition’ moved from sixth ranked in the Keaveney study to second in this study, indicating perhaps the increasing competitiveness of contemporary markets.