Emotions and stability in telecom‐customer relationships

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not emotions experienced in customer relationships – linked to actual behavior – could enhance understanding of their future development. Design/methodology/approach – A number of individual‐level relationships between customers and telecom operators are investigated. The empirical data consist of 113 switching stories reported during 81 interviews with telecom customers. Findings – In the analysis, emotional experiences are related to customers' activity or passivity and to the stability (switching or not) in the relationships. The most important research contribution is the identification of different emotions related to actual behavior. Less stable customers are pessimistic about the operators and show nervousness, while stable customers may have initially been depressed in their relationships, becoming more relaxed and optimistic over time. Emotions do not seem to have the capacity in themselves to cause stability or instability, but they confirm through their connection to different types of trigger whether the relationship will be stable or unstable. Research limitations/implications – The findings of the present study are based on a longitudinal empirical study, but only in one industry. Although, the telecom industry may provide a very fruitful context for the longitudinal study of stability in customer relationships because of the turbulence it has experienced during the last decade, the industry representation is narrow. Practical implications – Customers do not sever their emotional ties with the previous relationship when they enter the new one. On the contrary, they linger in the switched‐from relationship at least at first, which is indicated in the various emotional expressions they use. The present study takes some initial steps towards enhancing understanding of the dynamism in providing an insight into customers' differing emotional reactions connected to triggers during one and the same relationship. Originality/value – Taking a longitudinal approach from the customers' perspective produces a set boundaries of customer relationships that may not coincide with the set boundaries seen from the service providers' perspective. According to the findings of the present study, it seems almost impossible to understand customer relationships without following customers on an individual level in both previous and current relationships. Despite the fact that dynamism in customer relationships is widely discussed in previous research, few studies have applied such a perspective.