What is an insider term for "company hopping?"

April 23, 2020 7:07 AM

There are people who aren't loyal to any one brand. A good example, I think, would be cell phone plans. Say someone jumps companies every time a better seeming contract comes along, so they go from Sprint to Verizon, and then next time they go from Verizon to T-Mobile, etc. They pick the best advantage deal of switching every time. Is there a company insider term for this type of "company hopping?" How are customers who do this described within a company labeling the type of customers they have?
posted by tiny frying pan to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Best answer: In the cellular business it's known as "churn".

I've also heard it used in reference to employment, mostly at big companies where they care about aggregate numbers (as opposed to smaller companies who think in terms of 'retention rate' or 'average tenure' or some other metric).
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:16 AM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Price-sensitivity would be how to characterize the customer behavior, but it doesn't inherently limit things to only include switching companies but also products.
posted by sagc at 7:31 AM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I don't know if companies themselves use this term, but I've seen the media describe this behaviour for credit cards as rate tarts.
posted by paduasoy at 7:40 AM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

"Churn" is definitely the word in telecom, and cell phone companies (I'm employed by one) have whole teams of people devoted to analyzing churn and figuring out how to reduce it.

Within the company we'd probably call those customers "price-sensitive" or something like that.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:08 AM on April 23, 2020

FYI: Churn in most settings just means those customers who no longer decide use the companies services. It would make sense in telecom because you really have no other choice than to go to another company, but in many industries you're just not spending money in that industry.
posted by sandmanwv at 10:25 AM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The term I've seen for this is "brand agnostic."
posted by merriment at 12:18 PM on April 23, 2020 [3 favorites]