Retaining business customers through adaptation and bonding: a case study of HDoX

Business markets are complex. Sellers have to deal with customised demand, both passive and active markets, multi‐person interactions and interconnected relationships. Reports the case study of HDoX, a producer of hydrogen peroxide, an industrial chemical that has wide applications from the disinfecting of equipment in the foodstuffs industry to the bleaching of paper pulp. Focuses on HDoX’s practices for retention of its business customers, specifically, its industrial bulk users of hydrogen peroxide, through adaptation and bonding. HDoX’s customer retention practices are not part of an explicit retention plan but, instead, emerged as a result of HDoX’s continuous adaptation to customers and other members of its business network. The process of retaining industrial business customers is dynamic and contextualised and involves managing multi‐dimensional bonds between the seller, customers and other members of the business network.