An excellent example of the types of rigorous approaches to analyzing the profitability of particular customer relationships has been developed by Storbacka (1992, 1993, 1994a, 1994b). Focusing on the difficult problem of allocating costs to specific relationships, he argued that the most important cost drivers are the episodes (encounters) in relationships and provided a method to systematically analyze relationships (called episodic configuration). Analytical approaches like this one that can be subsequently tested empirically are important to moving the body of research in the right direction.