Chapter 5:

1.Why is it not enough to consider average customer value?

2.How often should actual value be calculated? Potential value? Why?

3.Search the Web for a company that has successfully fired customers in the past. What policies are successful, and what policies are likely to create mistrust?

4. What are likely to be the best measures of actual and potential value for customer bases (choose an example from the list below)? How would you confirm that your answer is right? Would the company likely be best served by proxy, financial, or statistical value analysis?

Customers or a B2B electronics components distributor

Customers for a dry cleaner

Customers for an automobile manufacturer; for an automobile dealer

Customers for a chemical supply company Customers for a discount department store

Customers for a large regional supermarket chain

Customers for a long-haul trucking company

Customers for Disney World; for Six Flags; for Club Med

Customers for CNN; for HBO (Caution: They're different. CNN sells viewers to advertisers while HBO sells programming to viewers.)

"Customers" for a political campaign; for the American Cancer Society; for NPR (formerly known as National Public Radio); for Habitat for Humanity

5. For each of the companies listed in question 4, what's the next step? How does a company use the information about customer value to make managerial decisions? Discussion in Class

Chapter 6:

1. Why has more progress been made on customer value differentiation than on customer needs differentiation?

2. If it could only do one, is it more likely that a customer-oriented company would rank all of its customers differentiated by value or differentiate all of its customers by need?

3. Is it possible to meet individual needs? Is it feasible? Describe three examples where doing this has been profitable.