An exploration of customer exit in retail banking

States that if the marketing community is to adopt the prescriptions of the relationship marketing school of thought, more knowledge and understanding of relationships is required. The base of knowledge is growing and there is now greater appreciation of the processes germane to healthy relationships, such as trust, satisfaction and commitment. Much less attention has been paid to the negative aspects such as relationship breakdown and ending. This paper addresses the neglected area of the ending of customer‐bank relationships or customer exit. Interviews were conducted with bank customers who had recently used the exit option. Content analysis of the customers’ stories was used to generate a model of the customer exit process. As reported here, the research took the perspective of the customer. This shows that customers end bank relationships after an involving process of problem(s), effort, emotion and evaluation. A discussion of the findings concludes that banks need to develop relationship management systems and skills.