Linking relationship marketing and technology acceptance variables to predict customer retention of smart services

Increasingly, manufacturers integrate information and communication technologies into the tangible goods they produce that allow them to provide “smart services”. In contrast to transactional sales for tangible products, manufacturers are now confronted with the challenge to understand customer usage and retention behavior for those smart services. The present study synthesizes an information system (IS) and a marketing perspective on smart services. In a field study conducted jointly with a large European car manufacturer, the authors show that the usage of smart services is best understood when integrating knowledge generated in both disciplines. The authors show that although customer retention can be predicted by behavioral or perceptual variables only, combining attitudinal and behavioral variables increases the prediction accuracy of forecasting models of customer retention and drop-out. Furthermore, they demonstrate the degree to which behavioral and perceptual data is helpful for understanding usage of and retention for smart services and what type of data should be tracked for predicting customer usage and retention of smart services.     «

Increasingly, manufacturers integrate information and communication technologies into the tangible goods they produce that allow them to provide “smart services”. In contrast to transactional sales for tangible products, manufacturers are now confronted with the challenge to understand customer usage and retention behavior for those smart services. The present study synthesizes an information system (IS) and a marketing perspective on smart services. In a field study conducted jointly with a lar...     »