Review on factors affecting customer churn in telecom sector

Abstract

The communications sector is emerging with new technologies, wireless and wireline services. The industry's success expects a better perception of customer requirements and superior quality of service and models. Customer churn has a huge impact on companies and is the prime focus area for the companies to remain competitive and profitable. Hence, significant research had been undertaken by researchers worldwide to understand the dynamics of customer churn. This paper provides a review of around 75 recent journal articles (starting from year 2000) to identify the various churn factors and their complex relationships, in existing telecom churn literature. It gives detailed discussion of what factors were identified in various studies, the sample sizes used and the method used for the study by different researchers. The gaps identified in the previous studies have also been discussed. A model on churn factors, identified from the study is proposed to serve as a roadmap, to build upon exciting churn management techniques.