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The paper aims to explore the effects of the behavioural antecedents suggested by the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (i.e. positive subjective norms, high perceived behavioural control and positive attitudes towards switching) on the switching propensity of retail banking customers at several critical switching incidents (CSIs) (i.e. events of unfavourable reputation concerning their current bank or favourable reputation concerning competitor banks, service failures, problems with charges and interest rates, herding behaviour, inconvenience, alternative banks' attractiveness and unethical bank practices).

A self-completed online survey was conducted among 324 Cypriot retail banking customers. For the data analysis, the researchers used principal component analysis (PCA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM).

The study revealed that the behavioural antecedents specified by TPB play different roles in various CSIs. Positive subjective norms may drive bank customers to switch at critical incidents such as: service failure, unfavourable bank reputation, alternative banks' attractiveness, inconvenience, favourable reputation of other banks and herding behaviour. High perceived behavioural control can lead to switching, only in the case of other banks' favourable reputation. Finally, positive attitudes towards switching may affect bank clients to switch in cases of service failure, unfavourable bank reputation, alternative attractiveness and inconvenience.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no other previous research work has examined the interaction between the antecedents of switching behaviour (as specified by TPB) and switching propensity at different CSIs. The study addresses the gap of explaining the reasons for which, at similar incidents, some bank customers choose to switch to other banks, whereas others do not.

This study seeks to identify the types of incidents which cause consumers to switch between banks, the weighting of each incident on the switching decision, whether single or multiple incidents influence switching decisions, and the extent to which switchers explain the problems they have faced prior to exiting. The key findings show that bank switching is strongly influenced by three types of incident: service failures, pricing and inconvenience, with pricing being more influential. Seventy‐five percent of bank switching is caused by more than one incident, and some 7 percent of respondents said they had spoken to bank staff in the period before exiting. The implications of these findings are presented.

Adopts a holistic approach that examines the combined effects of satisfaction, trust and switching barriers on customer retention in a continuous purchasing setting. Argues that such an approach helps uncover hitherto neglected effects on retention and, in the process, unveils more cost effective ways of retaining customers. Drawing on this framework develops several hypotheses regarding the main and interaction effects of customer satisfaction, trust and switching barriers on retention. Tests these hypotheses on data from a large‐scale mail survey of fixed line telephone users in the UK, finding that both customer satisfaction and trust have strong positive effects on customer retention. Contrary to some assertions in the literature, however, finds that the effect of trust on retention is weaker than that of satisfaction. Nevertheless, the interaction between trust and satisfaction also has a significant effect on retention, indicating that building both customer satisfaction and trust is a superior strategy to a focus on satisfaction alone. Qualitative evidence from the survey offers further support for this finding. Even a “satisfying” service recovery process might be inadequate to prevent loss of trust, with significant implications for future consumer behaviour. Finally, the results show that switching barriers have both a significant positive effect on customer retention as well as a moderating effect on the relationship between satisfaction and retention. While service providers may be able to retain even dissatisfied customers who perceive high switching barriers, argues that ideally, firms should aim at a combined strategy that makes switching barriers act as a complement to satisfaction.

The purpose of this study is to compare the company's perception of their business to the customers' dynamic view of their relationships with the same company.

Customers are interviewed about their perceptions of the relationships. The interviews are analyzed by using SPAT (switching path analysis technique) that divides the relationships into different parts with priority to their relevance for the strength of the relationships.

Customers who experience triggers in their relationships evaluate their mortgage provider differently than those who do not. The construct that influences the dynamism and the differing evaluations is defined as the trigger function. Three trigger categories are identified and described: the situational, the influential, and the reactional. In order to further verify the dynamic aspect of the customer relationship, evidence of customers' dynamic evaluations and of how the company's own perceptions of the business differ from those of its customers is provided.

Regarding the generalization of the results for services the findings are limited to one industry; the financial.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the dynamism in the customer relationships of a housing‐mortgage company.

The purpose of this paper is to add to current knowledge of online customer experience (OCE) by examining various drivers and outcomes of online grocery shopping experience that can help researchers and retailers answer the pressing question: “Why do online grocery customers stay or switch?”

This study applied netnography and critical incident analysis to a pool of 1,004 reviews captured from forum and review sites dedicated to online grocery shopping.

Two broad dimensions of OCE, four attributes and 13 factors corresponding to shoppers’ psychological states and their utilitarian and hedonic orientations emerged from the data analysis. The proposed framework, containing these four attributes and corresponding 13 factors, captures the consumers’ intention to stay with the current retailer or switch.

The study contributes to existing knowledge of OCE by providing a dynamic and yet holistic framework that encompasses experiential states and utilitarian or hedonic orientations in an online grocery context. Although its contributions are valuable to both researchers and practitioners, further quantitative analysis is needed to validate the findings.

In addition to providing superior customer experience by implementing the various drivers of OCE identified here, online grocery retailers can use the study findings as a strategic guide toward building a frictionless and pleasurable shopping experience.

The study employs netnography and critical incident technique to identify experiential attributes such as reliability, responsiveness, return and refund, which are unique OCE attributes in online grocery, a relatively unexamined field of retailing.

This research attempts to understand why – or why not – customers resist switching service providers when a critical incident occurs. The paper examines how service relationship perceptions, such as perceived equity, trust (perceived reliability and benevolence) and relationship commitment (affective and calculative), enhance relationship maintenance and CSR in many critical situations.

A survey was conducted in the financial service industry on a sample of 1,999 consumers (retail banking) and then conceptualized and measured CSR in several critical situations.

The paper demonstrates that perceived equity, perceived reliability, perceived benevolence, affective commitment, and calculative commitment do not influence CSR the same way. CSR mainly depends on the type of critical incident which occurs. For instance, calculative commitment, which is an evaluation of the costs associated with leaving the service provider, enhances CSR in three critical situations (service encounter failures, employee responses to service failures, pricing problems), whereas it leads to relationship disengagement in two other critical situations (inconvenience, changes in the consumer or service provider situation).

This research highlights the need to better take into account the different types of critical incident discussed in the relationship marketing literature and to better consider the complementary roles of perceived equity, trust and relationship commitment in the service switching literature.

This research implies that service companies have to anticipate the critical incidents and to develop specific “shock absorbers” to continue doing business with their current customers.

The traditional critical incident technique (CIT) and variants of the same have frequently been applied in service research for several decades. The technique has often been used to capture data on and analyse both negative and positive critical incidents. While one technique displays hosts of critical incidents in benchmark‐type series (SIT), another variant describes the dynamism in one discrete critical incident and a third the dynamism of the configuration of critical incidents (SPAT). In this article the different variants are discussed in relation to psychological theory focusing on the concepts of time, history and memory. To be able to analyse the criticality from the individual customer’s perspective, we argue that one must understand the significance of critical incidents in the light of human memory mechanisms and judgement processes. The discussion forms the basis for suggesting a new, tentative framework for analysing the criticality of critical incidents. We call this criticality critical incident technique (CCIT).

The objective of this work is to provide evidence of customer switching intentions as a complex phenomenon involving a series of firm actions – service quality failures, unfair price, low perceived commitment and anger incidents – and factors relating to the purchase situation or the consumer that also play an important role as moderators in the dissolution process.

An empirical study has been carried out in the case of customers of car‐insurance firms.

Results demonstrate the existence of some factors that have a weak influence on the switching intention – service quality and company commitment – and other factors that have a strong influence and precipitate the consumers' decisions – price changes and critical incidents. This study also underlines the moderator role of knowledge about alternatives and switching costs in this process.

This findings show that a continuing dissatisfaction with the firm as a consequence of a quality that is poorer than expected does not influence individuals as much as a change in the price policy or a one‐off incident in which consumers experience a strong unease.

This work provides empirical evidence about the existence of various determinants of switching: variables that weaken the relationship and variables that precipitate dissolution. These categories had already been discussed theoretically in previous work, but their effect had not been tested. Moreover, it advances in the idea that switching intention may fundamentally be conditioned by consumers' level of involvement and their knowledge about other alternatives.

The authors propose focusing on e‐commerce service failure and recovery through the presentation of failure and recovery strategies employed by e‐commerce service firms.

The authors employ the critical incident technique using 377 customer responses to present ten e‐tail failures and 11 e‐tail recovery strategies used by e‐commerce service firms. The authors also present data on post‐recovery satisfaction levels and propensity to switch behavior.

Findings indicate that: e‐tail customers experience different types of service failure relative to traditional retail settings; e‐tail firms employ a different series of recovery strategies relative to traditional retail settings; and post‐recovery switching by e‐tail customers can be high even with satisfying experiences.

This paper strengthens the existing failure and recovery literature by presenting data on the largest growing sector of the service industry. These findings will have value to traditional firms looking to expand to e‐commerce channels in addition to e‐commerce firms currently experiencing customer dissatisfaction.

This study aims at deepening understanding of the role of emotion in customer switching processes and identifying the relative frequency of negative discrete emotions in terms of different triggers.

Customers of Swedish telecommunications services were interviewed about their switching processes. The interviews were analyzed according to switching path analysis technique, which divides relationships into different stages in accordance with their relevance to the relationship strength. The ultimate focus is on self‐reported emotions embedded in the switching process.

The main finding was that the identified emotions were located in the trigger part of the relationship, and was expressed by the respondents during the switching process in form of annoyance, anxiety, disappointment, dissatisfaction, distress, depression, rage, stress and tension.

The empirical study is conducted within the telecom industry which may influence the switching frequency because of the deregulations in the beginning of this decade. This interpretation of valence and activation was based on theoretical assumptions about where various discrete emotions are located on a continuum.

The paper offers insight into the role of emotion in customer relationship.