Treffer: Retention of dissatisfied business-to-business services customers

The strategic importance of customer retention and the costs associated with customer switching behaviour have resulted in researchers devoting considerable attention to investigating the switching and/or staying behaviour of customers. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to investigating (1) the important deterrents to discontinuing the relationship in a single model in the business-to-business (B-to-B) service sector, and (2) the mediating factors under the condition of dissatisfaction in the B-to-B services sector. The fastest growth in services marketing today is in business markets, making this an important area of study with significance for marketers, particularly in terms of the development of customer retention. A two-stage research design, with qualitative and quantitative phases, was employed in the current research using a single key informant approach. The qualitative study utilised an indepth interview technique in which key informants representing 21 businesses provided interviews. The quantitative study employed a cross-sectional email URL embedded Web survey of key informants, which resulted in a final sample size of 376 responses. The simultaneous nature of the multiple relationships between key constructs was analysed using structural equation modelling. The research demonstrated that distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, satisfaction with complaint—handling, benefit-loss costs, economic-loss costs, learning costs, sunk costs, interpersonal relationships, dependence and calculative commitment are the direct and indirect factors that influence the likelihood of dissatisfied customers remaining in a relationship. A key finding is the mediating role of both dependence and calculative commitment on the relationship between specific firmlevel investments and repurchase intentions. This thesis makes four contributions. Firstly, it uses a business services context, which is an under—researched area for this research problem. Secondly, it connects .