Frederick Reichheld, a director emeritus at Bain and Co and author of the influential book The Loyalty Effect , has defected from the movement he started. Now what are we to make of that?

Actually, he hasn't completely disavowed his past work on customer (and employee) loyalty. He just admits that his theories have never caught on in the real world of business.

As Reichheld now sees it, "retention rates have not progressed over the last decade. Where the rubber meets the road, customers are not demonstrating loyalty.... No one defined what loyalty was. There was no measurement, no link to profitability or growth. There was a lack of definition. What is loyalty? If what you mean is putting up with lousy value or service, do you want stupid customers?"

Now, he is interested in customers who are willing to recommend a company's products to a friend or a colleague. While he still believes companies should measure customer profitablity, he thinks they should also be identifying the "promoters" and "detractors" among their customers. Obviously, the objective is to increase the number of promoters.

"The median ‘net promoter score’ is just above 10%," says Reichheld in Direct Magazine. "Most companies have 10% more promoters than detractors. But the best companies have 80% more. The net of promoters minus detractors doesn't show up in profit and loss statements, but detractors destroy your future and make your employees feel lousy."