What is a Customer Worth?

by Danny Summers

Several weeks ago you may remember I asked these questions:

1. What is a Customer Worth to You (over a lifetime)?
2. What is the cost to obtain a new customer (in dollars)?

The reason I asked was because I was reading comments from owners or managers who were having issues with seemingly unreasonable customers and it sounded like they were ready to say "Good Bye" to the customer(s). Before you ever get to the point of "firing a customer," I believe you need to have at least an idea of your answers to the above two questions. I understand sometimes you just can't please everyone and the answers to these questions can vary greatly, but this is a fundamental idea.