Final answer:
Retention strategies based on social bonds aim to develop long-term, emotionally and socially valuable relationships with customers, which foster loyalty and create high opportunity costs for leaving.
Step-by-step explanation:
Retention strategies based on social bonds refer to approaches that organizations use to maintain long-term relationships with customers. These strategies are rooted in the principle of social exchange theory, which posits that humans are motivated to maximize benefits and minimize costs in relationships. A key element of social bonds is the establishment of connections that go beyond mere transactions; they involve building interpersonal and social ties with customers that carry significant emotional and social value.
Forming strong, stable relationships, according to scholars such as Baumeister & Leary (1995), fulfills a fundamental human motive and can provide extensive social support during times of distress. Companies can leverage this by offering not just financial benefits but also emotional connections and personalized experiences, which can cultivate customer loyalty and make it psychologically and practically costly for customers to switch to competitors—thus creating high opportunity costs.
In the context of movements or collective actions, strong ties‰ÛÓlike those seen in high-risk activism‰ÛÓare essential for sustaining engagement. This phenomenon is backed by research from McAdam (1993) and Brown (2011), which shows that people are more likely to persist in challenging endeavors when they share strong-tie connections with others involved. Likewise, in business, fostering these strong social bonds can be crucial for customer retention.