In his New Yorker column this week titled “House of Cards“, James Surowiecki writes about how some US credit card issuers are trying to shed some of their existing customers.
In effect, they’re trying to follow the advice given by Larry Selden and Geoffrey Colvin in a book called “Angel Customers and Demon Customers
.” Not all customers are equal, it turns out: some are tremendously profitable, while others, like the guy who calls customer service six times a day to check his account balance, cost more than they’re worth. To boost profits, you must cultivate the angels and protect yourself against the demons.
Read the full article – Surowiecki lays out the issues of how credit card issuers have become addicted to revolvers – and how those same revolvers are responsible for the risks they’re most worried about now – and how the issuers are suddenly trying to exit those relationships ASAP.
Scott is a founder of Glenbrook with more than 30 years of experience in information technology. He is a co-author of the book “Payments Systems in the U.S.” and a co-inventor of US Patent 6,332,126 and US Patent 7,840,459. At Glenbrook, Scott focused his work on payments innovation, mobile payments, and social media / Web 2.0 in banking and financial services.
Previously, Scott was group executive vice president at First Data Merchant Services and at Visa International, where he led the development of Visa’s global payment systems strategies. Scott began his career as a systems engineer with IBM, where he held a series of technical management and product planning positions over seventeen years. Scott formally retired from Glenbrook in October 2016, but remains important to the firm as both a friend and advisor.