Best Buys Angels and Devils Program About ten years ago Best Buy applied the concept of activity-based costing to customer profitability analysis and introduced its Angels and Devils Program. In managements view, Angels are customers who boost profits by purchasing high-definition televisions, portable electronics, and newly released DVDs without waiting for markdowns or rebates. Devils are its worst customers. They buy products, apply for rebates, return the purchases, then buy them back at returned-merchandise discounts. They load up on "loss leaders" severely discounted merchandise designed to boost store traffic, then flip the goods at a profit on eBay. They slap down rock-bottom price quotes from Web sites and demand that Best Buy make good on its lowest-price pledge. As part of the Angels and Devils Program, Best Buys sales force was trained to target Angels given that these customers boosted profits and ignore Devils in hopes that these customers would no longer shop at Best Buy that is, these customers would fire themselves.*

In theory, this strategy seems like a good idea. Why do you think this idea was difficult to implement successfully?