Gupta Sunil, Mela Carl F
Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA,
Harv Bus Rev. 2008 Nov;86(11):102-9, 138.
Free customers who are subsidized by paying customers are essential to a vast array of businesses, such as media companies, employment services, and even IT providers. But because they generate revenue only indirectly, figuring out the true value of those customers--and how much attention to devote them--has always been a challenge. Traditional customer-valuation models don't help; they focus exclusively on paying customers and largely ignore network effects, or how customers help draw other customers to a business. Now a new model, devised by professors Gupta, of Harvard Business School, and Mela, of Fuqua School of Business, takes into account not only direct network effects (where buyers attract more buyers or sellers more sellers) but also indirect network effects (where buyers attract more sellers or vice versa) . The model calculates the precise long-term impact of each additional free customer on a company's profits, factoring in the degree to which he or she brings in other customers--whether free or paying--and the ripple effect of those customers. The model helped an online auction house make several critical decisions. The business made its money on fees charged to sellers but recognized that its free customers--its buyers--were valuable, too. As competition heated up, the company worried that it wasn't wooing enough buyers. Using the model, the business discovered that the network effects of buyers were indeed large and that those customers were worth over $1,000 each--much more than had been assumed. Armed with that information, the firm increased its research on buyers, invested more in targeting them with ads, and improved their experience. The model also helped the company identify the effects of various pricing strategies on sellers, showing that they became less price-sensitive over time. As a result, the company raised the fees it charged them as well.
由付费客户补贴的免费客户对于众多企业至关重要，比如媒体公司、就业服务机构，甚至信息技术供应商。但由于他们只是间接创造收入，弄清楚这些客户的真正价值——以及该投入多少关注——一直是个挑战。传统的客户估值模型并无帮助；它们只专注于付费客户，很大程度上忽略了网络效应，即客户如何帮助企业吸引其他客户。如今，哈佛商学院的古普塔教授和福库商学院的梅拉教授设计了一种新模型，该模型不仅考虑了直接网络效应（买家吸引更多买家或卖家吸引更多卖家的情况），还考虑了间接网络效应（买家吸引更多卖家或反之亦然的情况）。该模型计算了每增加一个免费客户对公司利润的精确长期影响，同时考虑到他或她带来其他客户（无论是免费客户还是付费客户）的程度以及这些客户的连锁反应。该模型帮助一家在线拍卖行做出了几项关键决策。这家企业通过向卖家收取费用盈利，但也认识到其免费客户——买家——也很有价值。随着竞争加剧，该公司担心吸引的买家不够多。使用该模型后，这家企业发现买家的网络效应确实很大，而且每个这类客户价值超过1000美元——比之前设想的要高得多。有了这些信息，该公司增加了对买家的研究投入，加大了针对他们投放广告的力度，并改善了他们的体验。该模型还帮助公司确定了各种定价策略对卖家的影响，表明随着时间推移卖家对价格的敏感度降低。结果，该公司也提高了向卖家收取的费用。
