The dynamics of research in customer retention: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Customer retention is crucial for businesses because it ensures the ongoing operation of a company's activities. Hence, companies must adopt suitable and inventive tactics to maintain customer retention. This study employed bibliometric analysis spanning the past decade to identify factors associated with customer retention that can be observed through data visualization networks, overlays, and density maps. The study involved analyzing a compilation of pertinent journals and scientific publications using the software tools Publish or Perish and VOSviewer. A total of 200 research articles were acquired from Google Scholar and subjected to analysis using the Publish or Perish tool. During the period from 2013 to 2023, there was a variable pattern observed in CR, as evidenced by fluctuations in both the quantity of research articles published and the number of citations received. The network visualization results indicate a strong correlation between customer retention and factors such as customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer relationships. The overlays' results for price, product, and cost exhibit the darkest colors, specifically purple. Conversely, keywords such as strategy, experience, and corporate image are represented by lighter colors, notably yellow. At that time, the colors that stood out the most were associated with density analysis, such as customer retention and customer satisfaction. In contrast, keywords such as competition, effort, price, challenge, success, and brand appeared less prominent.