Inattention in Contract Markets: Evidence from a Consolidation of Options in Telecom
利用移动套餐价格变动通知，发现客户疏忽导致搜索、换套餐和流失增加，月流失率从1%升至1.6%，且通知后立即流失而非价格变动时，表明消费者有策略地应对自身惰性。
We study customer inattention by utilizing a notification about a future price change in the mobile subscription market. With detailed customer-level data from a large telecom operator, together with data on prices and contracts offered by competitors, we document that the notification causes an increase in customer attention, which triggers search, plan switching, and churn. In particular, we show that the monthly propensity to churn increases by 60% (from 1% to 1.6%) among customers whose costs would decrease with the new prices. We also document an increase in churn directly after the notification, not at the time of the future price change, and argue that this timing pattern is evidence of sophisticated inattention: customers take immediate action to mitigate the impact of their own future inertia. We supplement the analysis with a survey and find supporting evidence for the important role of inattention in determining how consumers adapt to changes in the market. This paper was accepted by Eric Anderson, marketing.