Identifying Determinants of Customer Churn in Retail Banking Industry

Rising competitive intensity along with banks efforts to attract competitor's customers has lead marketing defensive strategies to be prominent in retail banking industry. Marketing defensive strategies aims to prevent customer churn through customer retention. This study designed to identify customer churn determinants. Research data was collected by telephone interviews from customers. Customer churn determinants have been identified by content analysis. In open coding phase, similar data was categorized in similar group. In axial coding phase, data were put back together in new ways by making connections between categories. Theoretical saturation took place at 110th respondent. Two main categories have emerged: voluntary and in involuntary customer churn. Research result shows that 46 out of 110(41%) voluntarily churned due to staff behavior related dissatisfaction (33%) and service and product related dissatisfaction, while 64 out of 110 (59%) has churned involuntarily due to uncontrolled factors such as office/home location movement (23%), salaries liquidator shifting (13%), personal and financial problems (20%) and expire of mainspring to open the account (3%).