Customer Profitability And Customer Relationship Management At RBC Financial Group Case Solution

1. Discuss how RBC computes the lifetime value of its customers. What additional insights are likely to come from lifetime value computations for customers, as opposed to annual customer profitability numbers?

Under the new customer relationship management (CRM) approach, new software was bought which enabled RBC to estimate the profitability of its customers in a more realistic manner. It was thought that there are customers who are profitable, and there are those who have the potential to be profitable. This new approach allowed the bank to incur short term losses on potentially profitable customers. Lifetime value of customers was estimated in two ways; estimating the present value of the profitability percentile assuming that it would remain constant throughout the forecasted life of the customer, and factor in other variables such as age, number of products of RBC held by the client, time spent as a client of RBC and probability that the customer would buy a new product. These factors allowed RBC to estimate the lifetime value on an individual level.

Lifetime value estimates the future profitability of a customer, as opposed to annual profitability, which can suggest that currently the customer is not profitable for the bank and may fall in a lower category in terms of profitability segmentation of customers. Life time value allows the front line staff to provide special and attentive services to clients who have the potential to be profitable even if they are incurring losses for the bank at present.

2. Explain why you agree or disagree with RBC’s decision to withhold profitability, potential, and segment information from its front-line employees?

Once the lifetime value is estimated, new segmentations and marketing strategies started to form. Profitability, risk, vulnerability and lifetime value was included into the strategies being formulated. New ratings were given to customers based on the above factors and customers were placed in newly formed segments according to their ratings.