Scope of Customer Retention Problems in the Mobile Phone Sector: A Theoretical Perspective

As identified by large numbers of scholars, service organisations are facing critical problems regarding a set of questions relating to customer retention (CR), namely, How to retain their customers? and How to decrease both customer costs and customer mobile-switching rates? Thus, this study focuses on CR problems in the mobile phone service sector. CR has become an issue as customers increasingly switch service providers as competition between service providers escalates. CR is further exacerbated with mobile service providers spending billions in gaining new customers but rarely spending equal amounts on establishing, maintaining, and building healthy long-term relationships with their existing mobile subscribers. Keywords: customer retention, relationship benefits, relationship cost, relationship classification, and mobile service providers