Drivers and dynamics
In the current business environment, trying to retain the right customers, and trying to offer the right service to the right customer at the right time is more important than ever. This dissertation focuses on how companies can better manage their relationships with customers, focusing on two main challenges: retaining one’s customers and making the right offer to the right customer at the right time.
Companies in competitive industries often struggle with losing customers, a problem known as churn. The first study in this dissertation is a so-called meta-analysis, which quantitatively summarizes and expands upon results from prior studies on why customers leave. Our study analyses data from nearly six million customers across various industries and regions. Our findings help identify what drives customers away and under what conditions, offering businesses insights on how to keep their customers.
Additionally, we examine cross-buying (buying additional products or services). We look at whether companies can predict how open customers are to cross-buying. By studying the cross-buying behaviours of nearly 15,000 insurance customers over three years, we discover patterns that can predict how a customer’s openness to cross-buying evolves over time. This research shows that cross-selling actions by firms can have positive, neutral but also negative effects on cross-buying, depending on how open to cross-buying customers are. This shows that if companies target the wrong customer at the wrong time, the consequences may be large: customers may not cross-buy additional services, and may even decide to stop buying services they already initially had.