Seller‐initiated relationship ending: An empirical study of professional business‐to‐business services

The purpose of this study is to examine why and how sellers end relationships with customers.

The paper reviews significant studies in the literature and then presents an empirical qualitative study of seller‐initiated relationship ending in two Finnish companies that offer professional business‐to‐business services.

Lack of profitability from a customer relationship is the most common reason for sellers choosing to end a customer relationship. The ending of such relationships is characterised by: lack of a specific strategy for dealing with relationship ending within an overall corporate strategy of relationship management; significant influence of the personal characteristics and experience of the individual persons involved; dominance of intuition over objective data; limited storage and use of knowledge regarding relationship‐ending experiences; and limited willingness to regain lost customers.

Further research into seller‐initiated ending of relationships is required in a variety of settings using various methodological approaches.

The paper discusses several practical implications of importance for companies that wish to improve their success in relationship management in general and seller‐initiated relationship ending in particular.

This is the first empirical study of seller‐initiated relationship ending in a professional business‐to‐business service setting.