When to say ‘no’ to a customer

This book summarizes the state-of-research on customer relationship termination and the profit interdependencies associated with it. Not all customer relationships are equally profitable for a firm. The question for managers becomes: What customer demands should a manager fulfil and when is it in the company's best interest to say 'no' to a customer? Lena Stiehl structures the profit interdependencies of losing business as a consequence of denying a request or terminating a relationship and makes them accessible for quantification. Based on interviews with leading managers, she develops a decision framework that sheds light on the cost and revenue consequences associated with a customer's requests and the possible answers to it. She also derives a set of general decision heuristics to identify the customers an organisation can afford to lose and provides recommendations on the design of a management system that fosters financially rational decision-making. The book builds a bridge between research and practice of relationship termination.