A holistic model of service switching/retention

There is a small body of research in the switching domain literature reporting on the causes of customers switching service providers. The findings of this research are based on a customer perspective of service switching causes. However, there is very little literature on service provider perceptions of customer switching antecedents. To address this gap in the literature, an exploratory study of provider perceptions of customer switching antecedents was undertaken. The purpose of this study was to twofold: (1) to address a potential bias in research reported in the switching domain literature since both customers and providers interact during dyadic service encounters and it is this interaction that results in customer switching (2) to extend switching domain theory by developing a holistic model of switching/retention derived from the extant literature and the findings of this study. During interviews with service providers, field notes of providers’ responses to the researcher’s enquiry about the causes of customer switching were made. These field notes were transcribed and the transcriptions were subjected to a content analysis. The main findings of the research were that service providers perceived antecedents of customer switching to be: (1) core service failure, expediency and competition (2) demographic factors of age and gender influenced customer switching behaviour. The main contribution of the research is that fewer causes of switching were perceived by providers to be antecedents of customer switching than those identified in research relying solely on the customer perspective of the causes of switching.