Customer life time value

A quite good example of the application of Customer life time value measures can be found at consumerist.com:

A customer service source inside Cingular sends us some interesting internal documents and says the cellphone company has a new policy that's got the headset set in a bind. He reports that Cingular will, "no longer discount equipment for customers that are not profitable for us, no mater where they stand contractually. I have received several calls from customers attempting to upgrade, only to have to inform them that although yes, they are out of contract, we will not offer them discounted equipment. "

But wait, how does a lowly Cingular rep determine how profitable you are as a customer? Luckily, there's a handy box on the operator's screen showing a computerized calculation.

If you threaten to leave Cingular for a wireless provider that doesn't suck, the degree to which they try to lure you back into the fold will depend on how green your mercury is.