Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge Your Stock [Hardcover]

Larry Selden (Author), Geoffrey Colvin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2003

One of the oldest myths in business is that every customer is a valuable customer. Even in the age of high-tech data collection, many businesses don't realize that some of their customers are deeply unprofitable, and that simply doing business with them is costing them money. In many places, it's typical that the top 20 percent of customers are generating almost all the profit while the bottom 20 percent are actually destroying value. Managers are missing tremendous opportunities if they are not aware which of their customers are truly profitable and which are not.
 
According to Larry Selden and Geoff Colvin, there is a way to fix this problem: manage your business not as a collection of products and services but as a customer portfolio. Selden and Colvin show readers how to analyze customer data to understand how you can get the most out of your most critical customer segments. The authors reveal how some companies (such as Best Buy and Fidelity Investments) have already moved in this direction, and what customer-centric strategies are likely to become widespread in the coming years.

For corporate leaders, middle managers, or small business owners, this book offers a breakthrough plan to delight their best customers and drive shareowner value.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Conventional wisdom holds that the customer is always king (or queen), but not all customers are created equal, write authors Selden (a consultant) and Colvin (a Fortune editor-at-large); in fact, some may be hurting your business (e.g., people who phone customer service lines thousands of times in a single year). So, they argue, it's smart strategy to figure out which customers are most valuable to you, and to lavish your attentions on them. The authors point out a number of companies that are reorganizing how they operate, like Best Buy and Toronto-based Royal Bank. The tone is exceedingly businesslike; sans colorful narratives or rhetorical flourishes, the authors march stiffly through the points they want to make. It's unclear sometimes how behavior should be altered by this philosophy: should you, for example, refuse to do business altogether with unprofitable customers? But the book's central thesis manages that rare mix of being both surprising and eminently reasonable.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Larry Selden is a professor emeritus of finance and economics at Columbia University Graduate School of Business, a prominent consultant, and an adviser to senior executives in many industries.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; First Edition edition (June 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591840074
• ISBN-13: 978-1591840077
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #945,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great strategy book, February 23, 2004

By 

Bruno Levy (Milan Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge Your Stock (Hardcover)

This is a skillfully written, subtile and insightfull book.

I believe that the reviewer who said that "this book stated the obvious and that outside of a novice business student, anyone who finds this book interesting or useful may want to consider another profession than business" has missed the point of this book...completely.

The importance of this book is NOT in stating that "the customer is important .. some more than others". This we all know.

The importance of this book is in outlining a practical methods for ascerting which customers are money making one and which are not money making one **by going at the junction of customer marketing and customer finance**. It is by offering a practical way to relate the two perspectives (the qualitative and the quantitative one) that this book was useful to me.

The key thing I learned from this book is the introduction of detailed customer-finance reasonings to evaluate clients.

I also was greatly inspired by their concept of CUSTOMER DEAVERAGING. I too often see company that thinks in terms of their "average customers" and thereby miss any valuable & actionable insight on how to relate to their customers in a way which is both more profitable and more meaningfull (from both the customers and the client perspective).

Well for company who are like that, I think this is a GREAT book that uncovers what needs to be done in both a practical and theorically sound way.

I can testify that having applied a big part of the framework of this book to solve one strategy problem of one of my european client, we did uncover some really devishly customers (50% of their client acquisition was focusing on customers from which their will be never enough money generated to cover the initial customer acquisition expense) and some really angel ones (25% of their customer acqusition was focused on clients that represents overall 65% of their actual profit). We were also able to do some detailed financial modelling to discover that, in their specific case, they should refocus their attention on the angel customers and probably completely change their business model and value proposition for dealing with their demon ones.

If I had one critic it would be that the part relating customer oriented strategy and the stock valuation is treated without enough precision.

Having said that, I can also state the customer business I was speaking about is a recurrent one and that as a result the benefit of acquiring an angel customer goes well beyond the financial revenue derived from them in the first year. So, beyond the immediate profit improvement that are likely to results from their refocusing on the right customers this year, I anticipate this company to achieve a surge of their financial results in the following years (This hopefully will ultimately also find a reflection in their stock price...)

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Behold customer centricity, October 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge Your Stock (Hardcover)

We have all been frustrated in our interactions with companies that are unable to fulfill our needs. Selden's book paints in broad strokes the steps companies can take to transform themselves into truly customer centered organizations. I have found that while many companies claim to be "customer centric," it is actually impossible for them to be so because, as Seldon insightfully explains, they are not organized around customer segments, are unaware of the varying profitability of these segments, and treat customers equally.

This book should serve as a wake up call to senior executives who desire to take their companies to the next level of success. I found it compelling that the companies cited in the book that have undertaken this transformation have been greatly rewarded through increased profitability and above average stock movement.

After reading this book, I believe that executives may perceive such a reorganization to be daunting and require the use of outside consultants. However, Seldon poignantly points out that the immediacy of favorable results on a small scale will make company wide transformation quickly achievable, and produce substantially improved financial returns.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Make your Angel Customers Happy, March 28, 2004

By 

Keith Appleyard "kapple999" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge Your Stock (Hardcover)

We should all be aware of unprofitable Customers. Anyone in business should be already aware of the 80/20 rule - that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers.

This book goes that one step further - by some excellent case studies it shows how 150% of your profits come from 20% of your customers - they are the Angels. The Demons are those 20% of your customers who actually lose you money equal to 150% of your profit.

Its not another book about CRM (Customer Relationship Management), but it is about being Customer-focussed rather than Product-focussed.

I have multiple relationships with Companies who could do with reading this book - including my own employer, with whom I have around 20 Contracts, and yet any one Business Unit only seems to know about 1 or 2 others at best. All those lost selling opportunities - for example they know the ages of my kids from my Travel Insurance Policies, but have never tried to sell me any College Savings Plans!

Read the book and make your Angels happier - and get rid of the Demon ones!