Find and Keep the Right Customers

Abstract: Most marketing and finance managers suspect that many customers are unprofitable after applying all the ‘below the line’ costs of serving and supporting them but they don’t know who they are. If sales and marketing people did know this information it would change their work dramatically and make a huge difference to the bottom line. This paper looks at these issues and suggests that managers can use some simple techniques to gain a better understanding of these problems and what can be done about them.