What Is the True Value of a Lost Customer?
研究指出传统客户盈利模型忽略社交影响，发现流失客户的价值取决于其是否转向竞争对手或放弃技术，以及放弃的时间点，早期采用者流失的代价远高于后期采用者。
Customer profitability models have evolved into an important strategic tool for marketers in recent years. Traditional customer profitability models implicitly assume that customers can be valued in isolation from one another and that social interactions can be ignored. The authors show that these conventional models may be inappropriate for markets involving new products or services because they fail to account for the social effects (e.g., word of mouth and imitation) that can influence future customer acquisitions. They show how the impact of a lost customer on the profitability of the firm depends on (a) whether the customer defects to a competing firm or disadopts the technology altogether and (b) when the customer disadopts the technology—distinctions often overlooked in conventional models. The results demonstrate how the value of a lost customer changes throughout the product life cycle, showing that the loss of an early adopter costs the firm much more than the loss of a later adopter.