Fading customer relationships in professional services

Fading customer relationships are important phenomena to understand for companies to prevent a future relationship termination, manage a desired relationship termination, or manage the situation where the relationship strength temporarily or permanently has weakened. It is assumed that fading could take different forms and develop through a range of different processes. The purpose of this study is therefore to reveal different types of possible fading customer relationship processes.

A total of 42 semi‐structured qualitative interviews have been made looking at 21 fading relationship dyads. The interviews focused on understanding the development of the relationship process emphasising the weakening of relationship strength. The data were analysed using ideal type analysis.

Different aspects of the fading process resulted in a model for analysing fading relationships, and four types of fading processes were revealed: the crash landing process, the altitude drop process, the fizzle‐out process, and the try‐out process.

The article contributes to a broadened understanding of different types of fading processes within the research area of ending relationships emphasising the dynamic aspects of the phenomenon.

Managerial implications include the management of different types of fading processes making it possible to create strategies focusing on the specific characteristics of the outlined types.

There is a lack of research in the services literature focusing on relationship dynamics in general and the weakening of customer relationships in particular; also very few business‐to‐consumer studies take a dyadic approach. This paper explores the unknown territories of relationship fading.