Profitability usually concentrates in a much smaller slice of the customer base once you factor in discounts, service load, and complexity. 20% of customers can generate more than 100% of total profits.
Most businesses can identify their “best customers” quickly: the ones who spend the most, buy most often, or have been with you the longest. They’re easy to pull from a sales report—and they tend to get the most attention because they make performance look strong.
When you define “best” too narrowly, you start optimizing for the wrong signals. You over-invest in accounts that quietly drain your team, mistake retention for loyalty, and overlook the customers who would actually make growth easier.
If “best” isn’t just highest spend or longest tenure, what is it?
In This Article
Your biggest customers can be your least profitable
“Loyal” customers might be stuck
Confusing “most vocal” with “most valuable”
Your best customers might be the easiest to serve
Your “best customers” might be misaligned
1) Your Biggest Customers Can be Your Least Profitable
In a lot of businesses, profit is concentrated in a surprisingly small slice of customers—sometimes the top group generates more than 100% of total profit, which means the “rest of the book” is basically breaking even or quietly losing money. In extreme cases, that top slice can account for 200–300% of profit.
That’s why a customer who places large orders can still be a bad deal. The margin gets eaten up by things like:
One-off requests and custom work
Expedited shipping or special handling
Frequent support tickets, check-ins, and escalations
Discount pressure and negotiated terms
Slow payments and the extra admin that comes with them
What to do instead:
Start tracking contribution margin (or gross profit) by customer. If you don’t have clean cost data, use simple proxies that are easy to capture:
Hours your team spends on the account
Number of escalations or exceptions
Rush requests
Returns, rework, or credits issued
Your best customers are the ones who let you grow without making your operations brittle.
2) “Loyal” Customers Might Be Stuck
Long tenure can mean love but it can also mean inertia. Acquiring a new customer can be 5–25x more expensive than retaining an existing one. This is why “stuck” customers who aren’t expanding might pose a risk to your business.
Some customers stay because switching is annoying, not because you’re their first choice. They don’t complain, they don’t ask for anything, and they don’t leave… but they also don’t refer, upgrade, or engage.
The danger is that you interpret “still here” as “high satisfaction,” then you stop improving the experience because churn looks fine. Until a new competitor makes switching easier, and suddenly “loyal” turns into “gone.”
What to do instead:
Measure expansion 和 advocacy alongside retention. Ask:
Do they buy more over time?
Do they try new products/services?
Do they refer others without being pushed?
A customer who grows with you is different from a customer who’s simply not motivated enough to leave.
3) Confusing “Vocal” with “Valuable”
Some customers take up a lot of oxygen. They ask for calls, they push for exceptions, they escalate quickly, and they dominate the relationship.
Because they’re loud, they feel important. Your team builds special workflows around them. Your roadmap bends toward their needs. Your leadership starts making decisions based on a handful of high-maintenance accounts.
The problem: loud customers aren’t always the customers you want more of. In fact, they’re often the opposite.
What to do instead:
Create a simple “customer health” score that includes operational drag:
support volume
exception requests
missed deadlines (on their side)
discount pressure
staff time per dollar of revenue
Your best customers are the ones your team enjoys serving because it’s clear, smooth, and repeatable.
4) Your Best Customers Are The Easiest to Serve
There’s a category of customer many businesses overlook because they aren’t flashy: the ones who are easy.
They understand your process. They follow instructions. They pay on time. They don’t require heroics. They use what you sell as intended and get great results. They’re profitable, predictable, and low stress.
These customers rarely trigger alarms or celebrate in dashboards. But they do something extremely valuable: they free up capacity.
Capacity is what lets you:
ship faster
answer faster
iterate more
take on new work without breaking your team
What to do instead:
Track cost-to-serve just as seriously as top-line revenue. A customer who lets you deliver consistently is often worth more than a bigger account that constantly introduces chaos.
If your best customers are the ones who make your business easier to run, your business will scale with less pain.
5) Your “Best Customers” Might be Misaligned
This one stings because it’s strategic, not personal.
The customers who got you here might not be the customers who get you where you want to go next.
Maybe you’re moving upmarket, but your current “best” customers push for low price and custom work. Maybe you’re trying to standardize, but your top accounts only buy when you bend the rules. `Maybe you want more predictable recurring revenue, but your biggest customers are seasonal.
If you keep optimizing for yesterday’s best customers, you lock your business into yesterday’s business model.
What to do instead:
Define your “future best customer” profile. Then compare it to your current top list.
Ask:
Do they buy what we want to sell more of?
Do they fit our ideal process?
Do they strengthen our positioning?
Would we actively try to acquire more customers like them?
The goal isn’t to abandon your current customers. It’s to stop letting the wrong segment dictate your future.
If you’re ready to explore how to integrate a better checkout experience for your business, or to understand what’s possible, reach out to our team for a quick demo!
