There are no bad customers, only bad strategies (parte II)

Através de um tweet de Arie Goldshlager cheguei a este postal de 2009 "Can courting so-so customers be good for business?" onde este estudo é citado "Courting So-So Customers Can Be Good for Business".
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O que logo me fez recordar este postal "There are no bad customers, only bad strategies" e voltar a Storbacka e Lehtinen no livro "Customer Relationship Management" escrito em 2001:
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"The differences in the profitability of relationships in the customer base are generally significant. It is not unusual for over 30% of relationships to be unprofitable. In the worst case, as many as 80% of customers are unprofitable.
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The distribution of profitability in the customer base is often very dramatic. Management literature often cites the Pareto rule, which states that 20% of customers account for 80% of profits. This is not entirely true, however. The distribution of profitability is usually much more dramatic: it is not uncommon for 20% of customers to bring 180% of the profit. If you calculate the unprofitable customers' share of the profits derived from an entire customer base, the percentage is negative, which is why the percentage may be more than 100%. (Moi ici: Recordar as curvas de Stobachoff)
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The main purpose of analyzing customer bases is to determine the reasons for profitable and unprofitable relationships. On the basis of this identification, it is then possible to determine the profitability potential in the customer base. Taking advantage of this potential requires changing relationship strategies.
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A customer base can usually be divided into three different portfolios: The "protect" portfolio, the "develop" portfolio, and the "change" portfolio. The "protect" portfolio encompasses relationships whose value is great to the company. Strategies should be be created to protects customers from the "temptations" of other providers.
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Relationships in the "develop" portfolio hold significant volume and profitability potential, assuming the way they are developed increases customer share and/or simplifies the relationship structure (for example by decreasing the number of customer encounters).
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Relationships in the "change" portfolio are the ones which are clearly unprofitable. Their value to the company is insignificant unless they can be dramatically transformed. The management of these relationships can begin to resemble "terminal care" if change is not effected in the value."
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E agora voltamos ao ponto principal, relacionado com o texto inicial de Goldshlager, escrito por Storbacka em 2001:
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"The greatest profitability potential is usually not found in relationships which need to be protected. These relationships are already so good that it is unlikely that they will improve significantly. Preferred customer programs can thus be dangerous if they function as vehicles for automatic discounts or if they result in the heavy use of resources for handling customers.
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The greatest potential can usually be found in the "develop" and "change" portfolios. Because the number of unprofitable customers is often high, it is possible to achieve significant improvement in profitability even by only implementing small changes."
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Relacionado com isto, ainda, este artigo "It's Time to Fire Some of Your Customers":
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"business is not about growing revenue, but about growing profitable revenue with the right target customer. To get that right customer, you sometimes need to start by casting a wider net, figuring out which customers are the most attractive, and then temporarily shrinking the business before you grow it again. With each iteration, you get smarter and more targeted towards the ideal customer profile."
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"Why do so many of us fall into the trap of spreading our efforts evenly across our customer base, or even skewing them towards the lowest-potential customers? It is tempting to embrace every customer equally — and we naturally want to understand why the lower customer deciles are not behaving like the higher deciles. We want to believe that we can nurture and develop all customers to reach high potential levels over time. However, in the companies in which we have been involved, the data do not support that thesis. It is always tougher to change customer behavior than to find new customers similar to your existing top-buyer profiles." (Moi ici: Julgo que o autor embora foque a questão dos clientes não-rentáveis não percebeu ainda o potencial dos portfolios menos rentáveis se a abordagem, se a estratégia mudar...)