Banking sector is one of the largest sectors dealing with individual customers directly and in fact the success and profitability of company is also based on the number of customer base and their level of transactions. The current banking industry is under immense pressure because now the customer switching is quite common but the banks are still trying to sustain their customer base by managing the customer loyalty program through effective customer relationship management. The current study revolves around the customer relationship and customer loyalty in banking sector of UK. The study has been started with objective to understand that whether relationship marketing have any significant impact on customer loyalty and customer retention in banking sector of UK. The study is based on primary research work where the customers of UK banking sector have been contacted through social media for supporting in research work. There are 2500 customers were targeted for the survey purpose but just 160 people replied with survey and the same data was used for result analysis. The convenience sampling method is used in study and the survey was conducted through survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire was prepared on Likert Scale and the questionnaire was formed on Google Drive. The survey result is analysed with help of SPSS 22.0 and the major statistical used for study are Mean and graphical presentation. The hypothesis testing is done through ANOVA. The result indicates that there is a positive relationship between relationship marketing and customer loyalty and retention.

Franchised small businesses will not survive their first 5 years if they cannot implement marketing strategies that appeal to their customers. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the marketing strategies that successful franchise small business leaders used to retain customers. The population comprised 4 business leaders at franchise small businesses in North Carolina. Competitive advantage theory and blue ocean theory grounded this study. Data were collected using semistructured face-to-face interviews and review of company marketing materials. Data were thematically analyzed, and 6 themes emerged: personalization of customer service, market segmentation, innovative advertising, networking, brand identity, and loyalty programs. Market segmentation and innovative advertising are fundamental strategies for retaining customers within the target market, whereas personalization of customer service can help build positive relationships with customers. These findings could improve customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, which might increase the number of successful small businesses in the United States. The implications for positive social change include the potential for business leaders to develop effective marketing strategies to retain customers, which may benefit customers through an increase in job opportunities in the local business community.

Customer churn is a critical problem faced by telecom companies, leading to lost revenue and increased marketing costs. In the highly competitive telecommunication sector, customer retention is essential for success. It costs five to seven times more toacquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. Considering this, churnprediction models are increasingly becoming an important tool for telecommunicationorganizations looking to minimize their customer attrition rate. Churn, or customer attrition, is a major problem for businesses in the telecommunications sector. Every year,millions of customers switch to new service providers, resulting in billions of dollarsin lost revenue. In the ever- evolving and highly competitive world of telecommunications, businesses are constantly looking for new ways to improve customer loyaltyand reduce customer churn. Machine learning techniques can be incredibly useful inthis endeavor. This study proposes a customer churn prediction model using machinelearning techniques to help telecom companies retain customers and reduce churn rates.The proposed model analyzes big data using machine learning algorithms, including KNearest Neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR),Random Forest (RF), Adaboost, Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM), GradientBoosting, and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) to predict customer churn. The proposed model achieves high accuracy score of 95.74% with the XGBoost and LGBMclassifier. The results demonstrate that machine learning algorithms have the potentialto predict customer churn effectively and provide insights into the primary drivers ofcustomer churn.

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The banking sector in Ghana has witnessed significant improvement in relationship marketing. The purpose of this study is to bring deeper understanding and insight into the practice of relationship marketing and customer retention by banks in Ghana. For this study, 12 out of the 27 banks in Ghana were selected as the sample size. The research explains the role of relationship marketing in customer retention and also demonstrates how relationship marketing is applied and practiced by the banks in Ghana. A qualitative research approach was chosen and deductive research was conducted based on twelve case studies from both local and international banks. The following research questions guided the study: I. What are the major reasons for the adoption of relationship marketing in customer retention in the banking industry in Ghana? II. How is relationship marketing applied to retain customers in the banking industry in Ghana? III. How is relationship marketing practiced to increase loyalty and improve customer retention in the banking industry in Ghana? The findings of the study showed that indeed, all the banks have reasons for adopting relationship marketing in customer retention. The most popular reason for believing in the success of relationship marketing is customer retention. On practice, even though all the banks are similar in terms of their capacity, human behaviour influence relationship marketing and therefore brought differences in practices. The study found that banks apply relationship marketing in their customer retention efforts and all work towards retaining customers in order to make profit as it is more profitable to retain existing customers than to acquire new customers. As human behaviour is of great importance in relationship marketing activities of the banks, it was recommended among other things that banks staff training plan should be strengthened if they want success in their relationship marketing activities. / <p>Validerat; 20110901 (anonymous)</p>

Customer retention is crucial for a firms long term success and its application and dynamics are particularly interesting in the context of high growth firms. High growth firms are commonly characterised by having limited resources and operating in constant change in structure and routines which can affect the way the firms are able to work with customer retention. This research aims to investigate how high growth firms perceive customer retention. This research also aims to identify major difficulties high growth firms have working with customer retention as well as what strategies are used to counteract those difficulties. In order to investigate this topic, a qualitative study based on data from semi-structured interviews with seven high growth firms was conducted. My finding suggest that high growth firms has a great prioritising on customer retention. The findings also identified that limited resources and changing structure and routines is a challenge for high growth firms working with customer retention. This research identified key strategies high growth firms use to work with customer retention, being a quality customer service, customer focused culture, and relationship bonds.

In the business-to-business (B2B) financing industry, financiers offering financing to SMEs are finding it increasingly difficult to attract new customers and to retain existing customers. One way of attracting and retaining customers is by creating superior customer satisfaction, as it is believed that customer satisfaction leads to loyalty which ultimately results in customer retention. Customer satisfaction could also be an important indicator as to whether customers would want to build long-term relationships with financiers. With the current tendency towards the standardisation of financing products and services, building and maintaining relationships with customers is becoming increasingly important as a way to distinguish financiers from their competitors and, concurrently, to ensure survival. However, not all customers want to build long-term relationships with financiers. It is therefore important that financiers should identify those customers who have positive relationship intentions and focus their marketing efforts on these customers. The primary objective of this study was to develop a framework for relationship intention, satisfaction, loyalty and retention of SMEs in the business-to-business (B2B) financing environment. The descriptive research of this study is based on information gathered through quantitative, self-administered electronic surveys that were distributed among a South African financier’s (Business Partners Limited) customer database. In total, 120 SME respondents participated in the study, resulting in a final realisation rate of 12%. Results from this study indicate that the relationship intention measuring scale used in this study was valid and reliable in the B2B context within the financing environment. Results also show a significantly large positive relationship between respondents’ overall satisfaction and their loyalty towards Business Partners Limited (BPL), as well as a significantly large positive relationship between respondents’ loyalty and retention towards BPL. In addition, respondents with high relationship intentions showed higher overall satisfaction with loyalty and retention towards BPL than those respondents with moderate and low relationship intentions. Furthermore, the results indicated that respondents with moderate relationship intentions have higher overall satisfaction with BPL than those respondents with low relationship intentions. Respondents with moderate relationship intentions also displayed higher loyalty and retention towards BPL than those respondents with low relationship intentions. The results furthermore showed positive linear relationships between respondents’ relationship intentions and their overall satisfaction with BPL, between respondents’ relationship intentions and their loyalty towards BPL, as well as between respondents’ relationship intentions and their retention towards BPL. The results did not point to any clear parallels between respondents’ business size and their overall satisfaction, loyalty or retention. However, this study found positive relationships between respondents’ relationship intentions and their satisfaction, loyalty and retention. It is especially noteworthy that customers showing high relationship intentions overall, also showed a higher inclination to be satisfied, to be loyal and to become repeat customers (thus indicating retention). It is therefore recommended that financiers should rather use their customers’ relationship intentions and not their business size as focus, because strong positive relationships exist between respondents’ relationship intentions and their overall satisfaction, loyalty and retention. It is furthermore recommended that financiers should focus their marketing efforts and spending on customers with high relationship intentions as these customers tend to show higher satisfaction, loyalty and retention than those customers with moderate and low relationship intentions. Future research may consider using the relationship intentions measuring scale found to be valid and reliable in this study to other B2B contexts to determine the applicability thereof in other industries. Also, future research could consider testing the antecedents of relationship intentions, such as perceived brand equity, perceived organisation equity and perceived channel equity to determine the influence thereof on customers' relationship intentions. Finally, the study can be replicated under financiers’ B2C customers to determine whether relationship intentions are also applicable to these customers in the financing environment. / PhD (Marketing Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In the business-to-business (B2B) financing industry, financiers offering financing to SMEs are finding it increasingly difficult to attract new customers and to retain existing customers. One way of attracting and retaining customers is by creating superior customer satisfaction, as it is believed that customer satisfaction leads to loyalty which ultimately results in customer retention. Customer satisfaction could also be an important indicator as to whether customers would want to build long-term relationships with financiers. With the current tendency towards the standardisation of financing products and services, building and maintaining relationships with customers is becoming increasingly important as a way to distinguish financiers from their competitors and, concurrently, to ensure survival. However, not all customers want to build long-term relationships with financiers. It is therefore important that financiers should identify those customers who have positive relationship intentions and focus their marketing efforts on these customers. The primary objective of this study was to develop a framework for relationship intention, satisfaction, loyalty and retention of SMEs in the business-to-business (B2B) financing environment. The descriptive research of this study is based on information gathered through quantitative, self-administered electronic surveys that were distributed among a South African financier’s (Business Partners Limited) customer database. In total, 120 SME respondents participated in the study, resulting in a final realisation rate of 12%. Results from this study indicate that the relationship intention measuring scale used in this study was valid and reliable in the B2B context within the financing environment. Results also show a significantly large positive relationship between respondents’ overall satisfaction and their loyalty towards Business Partners Limited (BPL), as well as a significantly large positive relationship between respondents’ loyalty and retention towards BPL. In addition, respondents with high relationship intentions showed higher overall satisfaction with loyalty and retention towards BPL than those respondents with moderate and low relationship intentions. Furthermore, the results indicated that respondents with moderate relationship intentions have higher overall satisfaction with BPL than those respondents with low relationship intentions. Respondents with moderate relationship intentions also displayed higher loyalty and retention towards BPL than those respondents with low relationship intentions. The results furthermore showed positive linear relationships between respondents’ relationship intentions and their overall satisfaction with BPL, between respondents’ relationship intentions and their loyalty towards BPL, as well as between respondents’ relationship intentions and their retention towards BPL. The results did not point to any clear parallels between respondents’ business size and their overall satisfaction, loyalty or retention. However, this study found positive relationships between respondents’ relationship intentions and their satisfaction, loyalty and retention. It is especially noteworthy that customers showing high relationship intentions overall, also showed a higher inclination to be satisfied, to be loyal and to become repeat customers (thus indicating retention). It is therefore recommended that financiers should rather use their customers’ relationship intentions and not their business size as focus, because strong positive relationships exist between respondents’ relationship intentions and their overall satisfaction, loyalty and retention. It is furthermore recommended that financiers should focus their marketing efforts and spending on customers with high relationship intentions as these customers tend to show higher satisfaction, loyalty and retention than those customers with moderate and low relationship intentions. Future research may consider using the relationship intentions measuring scale found to be valid and reliable in this study to other B2B contexts to determine the applicability thereof in other industries. Also, future research could consider testing the antecedents of relationship intentions, such as perceived brand equity, perceived organisation equity and perceived channel equity to determine the influence thereof on customers' relationship intentions. Finally, the study can be replicated under financiers’ B2C customers to determine whether relationship intentions are also applicable to these customers in the financing environment. / PhD (Marketing Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

A great deal of attention has been devoted by researchers to examine different aspects of the relationship between marketing orientation (MO) and competitive advantage, mostly within causal relationship style research. However, the mechanisms and intermediate variables underlying this relationship remain vague and poorly investigated. Drawing upon mixed method research utilising qualitative and quantitative techniques, this study aims to offer further insight into this relationship within Jordan’s telecommunications market, focusing on customer satisfaction and customer retention as two prominent performance indicators in this market. Hence, this research set out to investigate the mechanisms and interrelationships that link marketing orientation and organisational performance, the issue that seems to be highly justified in the matured and competitive market where consumers have more choices, switching cost are decreasing and retention of the market base is becoming more and more difficult. As a case study undertaken in Jordan’s telecommunications market, the main four telecommunications operators in the market were represented. Quantitative data analysis was used to determine the variations between the main operators in the market regarding their adopted levels of marketing orientation. On the other hand, the qualitative technique - namely semi-structured interviews - represents the main instrument the study utilises to gain an in-depth insight into the relationship between marketing orientation (MO) and organisational performance. This qualitative tool enabled the researcher to construct a rich picture of the mechanisms and ways by which firms manage the different attitudinal dimensions of customer satisfaction and the behavioural dimensions of customer retention. Results of the research confirm significant variations between high- and low-marketing orientation telecommunications operators with regard to the approaches, drivers and mechanisms by which firms manage their capabilities to achieve customer satisfaction and customer retention. Thus, two different patterns were indicated which were associated with the adopted level of marketing orientation of these firms. The most important finding to come out of the research was that genuine marketing orientation is an integrated attitudinal-behavioural perspective. Hence, any deficiencies or even ignoring of any aspect will weaken a firm’s overall value creation capability, the main mission of the marketing-oriented firm. In addition, internal culture emerged as a critical success factor for marketing-oriented firms. It serves as the glue that ensures a firm’s values are adhered to, and also allows a clearer understanding of a firm’s vision and mission, which in turn resulted in the fact that these firms are more capable to translate their attitudes into practice on the ground. Moreover, the role of marketing orientation was substantial as it worked as a supportive environment that stimulates a firm’s capabilities to integrate and coordinate its resources and competencies into new ones in such a way as to enhance its overall performance as well as to achieve congruence with the changing business environment. The importance of this research stems from its nature and approach in studying the relationship between marketing orientation and organisational performance. The main issue being evaluated is different from the bulk of marketing orientation works that have focused on examining different aspects of marketing orientation and organisational performance within causal relationship-style research, and mostly within a short-run view. In contrast, this study is concerned with gaining in-depth understanding of this relationship through evaluating its mechanisms and interrelationships, the aspect that was treated as a black box in prior research.

Generally, service industries require a rapid innovation of service portfolios to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. In this context, service elimination is a tool of portfolio renewal, where customer retention is a strategic priority for companies. This is especially so because service elimination usually causes higher churn rates than an average churn in telecommunications. Thus, customer retention is seen as a major aspect in enhancing service elimination success. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that increase customer churn in the case of service elimination. We use one of the three Hungarian telecommunication Operator's databases containing usage data three months before and after Service elimination in the course of a major service package reform. Contract-related information and demographics of 10 065 customers are used to differentiate between high and low churn factors, taking care of a possible sample selection problem. The results show that in the course of service elimination there is a significant positive relationship between price decrease, tenure, interaction intensity on the one, and customer retention on the other side. Besides these, demographics (age and residence) also play an important role in explaining churn rates during service elimination. Furthermore, we find that a higher monthly fee after elimination increases the customer´s usage intensity. This research aims to contribute both to service elimination, as well as to customer retention literature, by hierarchical modeling of retention and usage during service elimination with practical implications for decision-makers in rapidly innovating telecommunication markets. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series