[Tanja Frischmann, E-Finance Lab]

Marketing measurement requires knowledge about needs and potential of customers as well as effective segmentation of the existing customer base. Consequently, to reach the aim of those measures – namely an increase in customer profitability – one needs to know about the reaction-probability and potential of their customers. Furthermore, there is evidence that customer’s potential is one of the most relevant determinants for successful selling activities leading to an increase in profitability. One key implication is that managers should not simply strive for improving reported satisfaction levels without an understanding of the relationship to customers’ share of wallet allocations. Therefore the resulting question has to be which customers should be approached with specific selling activities. Customers with high reaction-probability (Affinity) and high potential should be addressed. Potential of customers refers to a) total property (Size-of-Wallet) and b) the proportion which is already covered by the bank (Share-of-Wallet). This presentation introduces the theoretical foundations and empirical findings of an ongoing research project whose goals are the forecasting and segmentation of customers’ properties – via unrealized potential – as a requirement for successful selling activities.