Customer retention has been shown by academic researchers to be more profitable than customer acquisition. However, its implementation in the business environment has not been so successful. One of the reasons for this is that customer retention can be achieved in several ways (i.e. loyalty programs, affinity cards and switching costs) and that the translation from the concept of “retaining customers” to the actions and strategies to retain them is not always easy. One of the most attractive strategies to ensure that customers remain within the organisation is through cross-selling and up-selling. In short, the objective is to increase the number (or the value) of the products that a customer buys from a company to make it more difficult for him/her to leave. Whilst academic research has deeply investigated the concepts of loyalty, retention programs and trust, amongst others, cross-selling has not received the same level of attention. Moreover, existing research on cross-selling has been focused on products rather than on services. Finally, this research has mostly been conceptual in nature, with limited attempts to model or design practical cross-selling and up-selling strategies. In order for crossselling and up-selling to be effective retention strategies, they need to be tailored to the needs of the customer. The offer must be adequate in terms of the target (who is going to buy the product), the content (what is going to be purchased) and a time (when is the right moment to offer the new product). This thesis investigates customer retention and cross-selling and up-selling from a practical point of view in the financial services industry. Firstly, it assesses the importance of the concepts of customer retention and cross-selling and up-selling through several interviews conducted with financial services providers (insurance companies, building societies and independent financial industry bodies). Having established the relevance of these concepts in the industry, the next step developed and applied a framework to design cross-selling and up-selling strategies. This framework, named the “Who-What-When” framework, was applied to the transactional and customer data bases of two financial services providers (a Spanish insurance company and a UK building society). The “Who-What-When” method ii begins by segmenting the customer base in order to understand the characteristics and potential of each customer. It then, moves to modelling purchase propensity models, understanding the relationships between products in order to determine what product should be offered to each segment, according to their characteristics and their consumption history. Finally, it analyses the time sequence of the purchases in order to determine the right time (when the purchase is more likely to occur) to approach each customer, bearing in mind how they behave and the maturity of the products already held. The contribution of this thesis is twofold. From an academic point of view, the research demonstrates the importance of customer retention and cross-selling in the financial services industry, being both recognised as key strategic and tactical approaches for the future of the industry. Secondly, from a practical point of view, it contributes by developing an analytical framework to discover and design crossselling and up-selling strategies, aimed at retaining customers. This is achieved through the ‘Who-What-When’ framework which takes into account customer characteristics, consumption patterns and acquisition sequence to model cross-selling activities. Therefore, it refutes the traditional approach that ‘one size fits all’, advocating tailored strategies. Finally, this research highlights, from the empirical analysis, how repurchase decision is highly influenced by the length of the relationship with the provider and the type of products already purchased. Understanding these factors is key to successfully retaining customers via crossselling.

The relationship between customer satisfaction and firm profitability has received varying attention in the research literature. Customer satisfaction itself has been thoroughly investigated and a number of possible attributes identified. A linkage between customer satisfaction and repurchase intention has been shown to exist, though little research has been completed on actual repurchase, while recent research has shown a linkage between customer retention and revenue. If the research on these component parts is added together, it suggests a direct linkage between attributes of customer satisfaction and firm revenue, implying that firm revenue may be increased by identifying and improving key attributes of customer satisfaction.

Background: Statistics say that Pakistan is the third largest user of compressed natural gas, its increased demand has encouraged investment in this sector. Number of stations has doubled in less than four years, this has increased the ratio of competition and low amounts of profit. Cut throat competition forces retailers to work on quality for customers’ retention and for this retailers are expected to understand the needs and requirements of their customers. This understanding is the only key to customer retention. Research undertaken focus on the key issues faced by CNG stations for customers’ retention. The study will focus on retailer’s strategies for customer retention in a competitive environment. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is study customer retention strategies adopted by compressed natural gas (CNG) retailing stations, in a developing country (Pakistan). Research Question: How do CNG retailing stations satisfy, make loyal, and retain their customers in a competitive environment? Methodology: Deductive approach has been adopted for this research to investigate the behaviour of customers through telephone interviews, as it is a distant research. Convenience sample has been selected for this research and ten semi-structured telephonic interviews have been conducted to get the empirical data from the CNG retailers of Lahore, stations from ten different stations have been selected on the basis of prestige, repute and amount of publicity in print and electronic media. Semi structured interviews will be based on primary and secondary data together. Primary data is in the form of interviews, secondary in the form of reports and published journals. Telephonic interview was based on open-ended questions to judge the views, knowledge and utility of customers experience and close-ended questions that have provided the direct and accurate answers. Telephonic interviews have advantages and disadvantages but for a distant research like this, it is the only best possible methodology to get first-hand knowledge quickly, interview was based on ten questions to get a complete picture of customers’ retention. Operationalization was based on 14 questions question 1 to 6 are about customers’ satisfaction, 7 to 11 customer loyalty and 12 to 14 customer retention. Validity and reliability is the key to success for any research. Same question were asked in different ways to check the reliability of the answers, target oriented questions were asked to validate the objective of the research and to make research credible. Conclusion and Results: The research establishes that most companies do not have specific plans for the customer retention in a cut-throat competitive environment. Customers’ service and technical issues were the targeted areas to understand the customers’ retention. Customers’ retention means profit, low retention means low profits. Result in a nutshell is an increased focus on imperial investigation, which is inevitable to study strategies for customer retention for the survival in the competitive world.

Internet has brought new opportunities for companies to do business with each other. The company should focus on increasing loyalty to achieve customer retention and long-term relationships. Today, customer loyalty is critical for the company to survive on the competitive market, especially in the context of e-commerce. A loyal customer have higher propensity to stay in the relationship, resulting in long-term benefits for both parties such as reduced transaction costs as well as an enhanced competitiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the factors that drive customer loyalty in a business-to-business context, in order to facilitate the number of sales on e-commerce platform. To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, the study has sent out a survey to a number of business customers. The investigation shows that a several factors drive a customer to become loyal in a business-to-business context. First, recommendations from others as well as guarantees from third parties are factors driving the customer to become interested in the company to begin with. One key concept that is recurrent in this study is simplicity, both on the e-commerce platform but also outside the platform. Another major driver to become loyalty are the factor about the company keeping the promise given to their customer.

This research undertakes a contingency theory examination of strategy and cost system alignment based on customer retention and customer profitability analysis. Previous research and consultancy advice has promoted the benefits of a firm following a customer retention strategy. They claim that in order to support the strategy a firm should have a customer profitability analysis system in place. Yet often what is prescribed as good practice is not observed in firms. This inconsistency is explained using contingency theory. Initial qualitative evidence was collected from four industry sites to determine whether the above strategy-cost system alignment was present. An analysis of these findings suggested that the customer retention-customer profitability analysis system relationship was contingent on a range of factors. As a result, a contingent theory of this relationship was developed from the four sites, and this theory was then tested in a survey of 862 people from 431 firms. The survey results provide support for the propositions developed from the qualitative evidence. It is likely that firms will follow multiple operational marketing strategies and have cost management systems in place to support those strategies. Although customer retention is a very important operational marketing strategy, a significant number of firms do not have customer profitability analysis systems in place to support the strategy. Many contingent factors were identified. Customer profitability analysis implementation is dependent on industry type; size; the difficulties involved in determining customer costs; whether the organisation has a champion for the system; the relationship between the marketing and accounting functions in a firm; and the available labour resources to facilitate implementation. Further, it is apparent that customer profitability analysis information is not essential to support a customer retention strategy. Customer revenue information can be substituted and the firms are satisfied with the level of management accounting system support for their operational marketing strategies. However, many respondents see the value of customer revenue, customer cost and customer profitability information, providing opportunities for future design of such systems as well as research into their development.

Customer retention plays a pivotal role in contributing to the profitability of retail banks. Within this extremely competitive market it necessitates retails banks to follow a structured, data-driven approach to identify “at risk” customers and to launch proactive retention campaigns based on identified drivers of customer attrition. The following main drivers of customer attrition were identified in the retail bank:  Attrition decrease as Vertical Sales Index increase.  Attrition is lower where customers receive their salary in a BANKXX account.  Attrition decreases as duration increases.  Black and Coloured have a higher attrition rate than White and Asian. A literature review was conducted to identify the possible independent variables of customer retention and the concept of the profitable customer was addressed throughout proposed conceptual model was developed, signifying the best fit to identify drivers of customer retention in the retail bank. The analytical tool, SAS was used for data collection and statistical analyses of the data. This high-performance analytics assisted in providing the retail bank with valuable insight into how to successfully manage risk, retain profitable customers, improve operational efficiency and differentiate them in the marketplace for competitive advantage. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Customer retention plays a pivotal role in contributing to the profitability of retail banks. Within this extremely competitive market it necessitates retails banks to follow a structured, data-driven approach to identify “at risk” customers and to launch proactive retention campaigns based on identified drivers of customer attrition. The following main drivers of customer attrition were identified in the retail bank:  Attrition decrease as Vertical Sales Index increase.  Attrition is lower where customers receive their salary in a BANKXX account.  Attrition decreases as duration increases.  Black and Coloured have a higher attrition rate than White and Asian. A literature review was conducted to identify the possible independent variables of customer retention and the concept of the profitable customer was addressed throughout proposed conceptual model was developed, signifying the best fit to identify drivers of customer retention in the retail bank. The analytical tool, SAS was used for data collection and statistical analyses of the data. This high-performance analytics assisted in providing the retail bank with valuable insight into how to successfully manage risk, retain profitable customers, improve operational efficiency and differentiate them in the marketplace for competitive advantage. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies / See the attached abstract below

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Abstract Customer relationship management as a strategic marketing concept has gained tremendous interest among researchers and practitioners in recent times. Within the last two decades a significant number of research works have been carried out on various issues relating to customer relationship management. However, few empirical studies on market orientation and performance have been established in the Ghanaian banking sector. In an effort to contribute to the existing customer relationship management literature, a study of Intercontinental bank Ghana was conducted. A framework of customer relationship management was designed to guide the study. Specifically, this study examines the customer relationship marketing strategies of banks in a developing country like Ghana using Intercontinental bank as a case study. The study employed quantitative research techniques. Semi-structured questionnaire was designed for the study. The findings show that the bank is doing well by maintaining the relationship it initiates with its clients but must work on improving the number of contact time with them as e-CRM provides them with the opportunity to do so. However, a significant finding from the study is the realization that majority of respondents were willing to recommend the bank to others an indication that they were happy with the level of service at the bank. Although significant portion of those who considered the possibility of leaving indicated that they will do so because of delayed transactions. It is in the light of this that the research is said to play a significant role in the banking sector and for the nation as a whole. / P.O.Box 3077, Kaneshie, Accra Ghana. 0233 244184980/0233 271015288