Abstract

Whereas satisfaction is one of the main determinants of consumer re-purchasing behaviour, a decrease in purchasing gives evidence of possible customer-exit behaviour. Previous studies focused on re-purchasing behaviour and brand loyalty; the interest in understanding how the customers react to dissatisfying services and in identifying the predictive variables of their exit behaviour has remained marginal. The paper grounds on an analysis of a customer-exit model, developed by a leading company in the credit card industry in Italy. In order to prove that this model is a tool supporting customer retention strategy execution and capable of identifying profitable customers, even with an high risk of exit, it sets three different objectives to be verified: i) the relation between credit card usage decrease and exit behaviour; ii) the relation between satisfaction level with retentiontreatment and post-treatment credit card usage; iii) whether customers are aware or not of their actual use of their credit card and if this awareness influences their purchasing behaviour. Results show that the exit behaviour cannot be predicted merely by a decrease in the credit card usage and that the customers' awareness of their effective usage plays an important role. Marketing implications aiming to anticipate customers'requests and complains are discussed.