Predicting Customer Retention in Discrete and Continuous Services

Optimising customer loyalty is critical for any organisation. However, achieving customer loyalty is challenging, especially in service industries. This chapter discusses customer loyalty, the challenges of achieving customer loyalty in service industries, and the different challenges to achieving loyalty in continuous (membership-based) service providers compared to discrete service providers. Finally, a step-by-step risk profiling approach is presented, based on a mixed-method research approach, to help service organisations predict the likelihood of loyalty and implement targeted interventions to customer segments most at risk of defection.