Should I stay or should I go? Customers' reactions faced with the deterioration of a business relationship

Purpose - This paper aims to develop a framework helping managers to understand reactions, adopting the supplier perspective, and starting from the idea that the outcome of the degradation process is mainly determined by customers' reactions. Inter-organisational relationships are sometimes subject to degradation. When incidents arise, and relationship attractiveness decreases, its evolution becomes uncertain. Design/methodology/approach - A case study carried out with a large French industrial company (FabIndus) specialised in the production of supplies destined to a large variety of business sectors. In all, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff members of FabIndus and clients' representatives identified as having recently been confronted with deterioration in their relationship. Findings - The paper finds that customers' reactions vary according to the nature of the business relationship and the customer commitment when degradation begins. Using two types of commitment and the exit-voice-loyalty-neglect model, it is possible to identify four types of reactions in the situation of the deterioration of a relationship. For each one of the reactions, the paper defines the response strategy that suppliers may take on. Originality/value - The paper underlines the importance of a segmented view of business behaviours faced with the deterioration of a relationship. This can be helpful to elaborate differentiated response strategies, to avoid mutual misunderstandings.