We deal
with the relationship termination problem in the context of individual-level customer
relationship management (CRM) and use a Markov decision process to determine
the most appropriate occasion for termination of the relationship with a
seemingly unprofitable customer. As a particular case, the
beta-geometric/beta-binomial model is considered as the basis to define
customer behavior and it is explained how to compute customer lifetime value
when one needs to take account of the firm’s choice as to whether to continue
or terminate relationship with unprofitable customers. By numerical examples provided
by simulation, it is shown how a stochastic dynamic programming approach can be
adopted in order to obtain a more precise estimation of the customer lifetime
value as a key criterion for resource allocation in CRM.