Correspondence: Merlin Stone, Nowell Stone Ltd, 41-42 Foley Street, London W1W 7TS, UK. Tel: +44 7968 271937; e-mail: merlin@nowellstone.com

¹is one of the UK's most experienced consultants, lecturers and trainers in CRM, database marketing and customer service. He is the author of many academic and professional papers and 30 books on marketing and customer service. He is a founder fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. The Chartered Institute of Marketing listed him in 2003 as one of the world's top 50 marketing thinkers, while NOP World nominated him in 2004 as one of the 100 most influential individuals for their input and influence on the development and growth of e-commerce and the internet in the UK over the last 10 years. He is a director of Nowell Stone Ltd, an organisational development and consulting company specialising in database marketing, CRM, e-business and associated areas of customer service and IT. He has also pursued a full academic career, involving senior posts at various universities and has a first class honours degree and a doctorate in economics. He is now Visiting Professor at these universities: Brunel, De Montfort, Luton, Portsmouth, Southampton Solent and The West of England.

²is Director, Consumer Division, LBM, one of the UK's leading suppliers of customer management and direct marketing services. He was recently appointed to this post, in which he heads LBM's new consumer data and consulting division. Before taking up this post, he was the Global Business Development Director at dunnhumby and before that, Operations Director at Catalina Marketing. His consultancy work includes experience with Tesco, Asda, Somerfield, Hewlett Packard, Cadbury Schweppes and Coca Cola. He has a BSc (Hons) Business Information Systems degree from the University of Central England.

Received 24 December 2006; Revised 24 December 2006.

Abstract

This paper investigates some aspects of customer retention, in particular the role of customer data and contact centres. It investigates the reasons for problems in managing customer retention, from definition and strategy to operational issues. It describes some recent qualitative research carried out by the authors and shows how different companies are at different stages of maturity in retention management.