Chapter 11: Food for Thought: 1-4 (p. 410)
1. Let’s imagine you are the customer portfolio manager of a wireless phone company. How should you be evaluated at the end of the quarter? Straight sales from your customers? Net sales (sales minus cost to serve)? Customer satisfaction? Would it make sense for you to be evaluated on a combination of how much your company made from your customers this quarter and also—as of this quarter—what the two-year projected value of your customer base is? Five-year projected value? Why?
2. If a company rewards employees based on a combination of current and future values of customers, how might that change decision making?
3. Should the value of customers a company doesn’t yet have be calculated and taken into account in the present quarter? Why or why not?
4. How is retention different from share of customer (SOC) as a measure and how would it be used differently? Why are both important?
Chapter 12: Food for Thought: 1-3 (p. 444)
1. From the customer’s perspective, which is better: to buy through one channel or through several channels? The obvious answer is to have multiple channels available—order from the Web, make returns at the store, check on delivery by phone—and have all of those contact points able to pick up where the last one left off. But is there any advantage—to the customer—of using only one channel? Why does research show that customers who use more than one channel are more likely to be more valuable to a firm than those who use only one?
2. Often, the challenge in using predictive models boils down to a misunderstanding of the nature of cause and effect. Although statistical analysis might reveal that two observable events tend to happen at similar times, it does not necessarily mean that one event “causes” the other. What is more important: to understand what will happen next or why it will happen?
3. Customer analytics can be used for improving retention rates. How?
A Strategic Framework, 3rd Edition ISBN: 9781119239819 All assignments are to be in a Word document, 7th edition APA format, including cover page & reference page(s), with all paraphrascixes & direct quotes, cited:
