This integrative systematic literature review examines customer retention in the mining industry and similar industrial contexts. The review highlights a substantial divergence in the existing literature. While client and customer retention are widely analysed in marketing, electronic commerce, services, and information systems, research specific to mining that exclusively uses the term customer retention remains very limited and conceptually dispersed. Mining scholarship still relies heavily on qualitative case studies and interviews, whereas the broader B2B marketing field is dominated by cross-sectional surveys analysed using structural equation modelling. Through a Scopus search covering 2016–2026, 587 records were initially identified and screened, from which 37 peer-reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria for detailed review. The analysis shows that mining-specific studies rarely utilise longitudinal contract histories, service-event logs, installed-base performance data, lifetime-value modelling, or predictive churn analytics. This gap is significant as mining relationships are long-term, operationally embedded, and data-rich. Therefore, retention should be understood as a system-level outcome shaped by relationship architecture, operational reliability, service design, and the development of procurement capabilities.

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Mr. Mungayi Macheke