Towards a model of reactivation of relationships with customers
Conference Paper
Overview
Research
Additional Document Info
View All
Overview
abstract
The threat of churn or defection is a growing concern of consumer-oriented businesses. Customers who remain with a business, whether through retention or by defection and subsequent reacquisition contribute to revenue, to reduce costs by being less expensive, to reduce the costs of attracting new customers and to decrease the uncertainty of exchange through the experience accumulated during the former relationship. Yet, there has been a scarce focus on why customers come back after the relationship ended. The existing research studied value determinants of the regain offer and price strategies and did not relate them to the process of dissolution and only a few studies have focused the key drivers of reactivation success.
This research aims to investigate ended relationships focusing the question: Why do some ended relationships
reactivate? Determinants of a successful customer relationship reactivation are addressed. A theoretical framework is proposed based on ending literature and equity theory and a case study of a telecommunications company is described in order to illustrate the framework. It includes interviews in the marketing and customer service departments and with customers. The most relevant reactivation antecedents are considered to be customer characteristics (as age, involvement and variety seeking), cognitive factors (as offer’s value, procedures and satisfaction), reasons to switch and alternatives. The contribution of this empirical study is to advance knowledge about determinants (as inertia, emotional factors and relationship characteristics) of successful reactivation strategies. The framework has proven to be useful in suggesting approaches to customer relationship reactivation.
