Retaining customers in traditional retail financial services: interviewing 'les responsables'

This paper explores organizational concerns with retaining customers in traditional retailing of financial services. Managers, charged with retaining customers ('les responsables') in banks and building societies, are interviewed seeking their views on how their organizations retain customers. The study finds that there are a number of shared themes in the sample of informants, which are evolution/flux, customer information systems, a product/sales orientation, delivering financial services, staff and relationships with customers. Underlying these themes, however, appears some equivocation as these organizations try to retain customers when customer acquisition seems to be the thrust of their marketing.