The relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational climate and customer retention rates in a major UK retail bank

There has been increasing interest in the field of customer retention in the last two decades.Much of that interest has focused on the economics of customer retention and developing plans and strategies for companies to follow in order to improve customer retention. There has been little research into what determines customer retention, particularly from the perspective of organizational climate. This paper examines the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational climate and customer retention in a specific service setting, namely a major UK retail bank. Employees' perceptions of the practices and procedures in relation to customer care at their branch were investigated using a case study approach. The findings revealed that there is a relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational climate and customer retention at a micro-organizational level. They suggested that organizational climate can be subdivided into five climate themes and that, within each climate theme,there are several dimensions that are critical to customer retention.