Table 128 Jul 2026From “A vendor page supplied one tested source path for the 5x retention rule”

The chain, and what is actually found at each link

Each carrier of the attribution, against what a search of the record finds. The retrieval worked; the provenance did not.

Cite Embed

Table 1The chain, and what is actually found at each link

Step	What it says	What is actually there
The assistant	Bain & Company research by Frederick Reichheld established the 5–25x range	No such publication has been found
The page it cited	The same attribution, near-identical wording	A statistics page selling virtual-assistant staffing
Reichheld & Sasser, HBR 1990	Named as the origin by one of the four systems, echoed as an attribution by a second	No cost ratio of any kind appears in it
The held publication trail	:	Hart, Heskett & Sasser (HBR 1990), where the figure appears as "five times more, most industry experts agree" and cites nobody. No Bain or Reichheld in the cited works

Swipe or scroll horizontally if the table is wider than your screen.

Source: The pair's own audit (Q1 cell) and the published record: Keiningham, Vavra, Aksoy & Wallard (2005), Reichheld & Sasser (1990) and the cited page, each checked at source 2026-07-28. The table is the essay's own adjudication; every row's verdict is in the claim ledger.

PNG4:3, 1600 × 1200, with the title, the source line and the attribution set in the image isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02.png

From the essay

From the research bench

A vendor page supplied one tested source path for the 5x retention rule

In three counted runs, an assistant named Bain and Frederick Reichheld. A search of the cited works found neither reporting the figure.

28 Jul 2026

Read the essay

This exhibit belongs to an essay: the numbers live here, the argument lives there.

Cite or embed

APA 7

Isoglu, S. (2026). The chain, and what is actually found at each link [Table]. isoglu.com. https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02/

BibTeX

@misc{isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02,
  author = {Isoglu, Sinan},
  title = {{The chain, and what is actually found at each link}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Table 1, isoglu.com},
  url = {https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02/},
  note = {From the essay {A vendor page supplied one tested source path for the 5x retention rule}}
}

Embed this exhibit

Copy this HTML to use the PNG exhibit on your site with its source line and a link back to the exhibit page.

<figure>
  <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02/">
    <img src="https://isoglu.com/social/isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02.png" alt="Table 1: The chain, and what is actually found at each link" width="3200" height="2400">
  </a>
  <figcaption>Table 1: The chain, and what is actually found at each link. Source: The pair&#39;s own audit (Q1 cell) and the published record: Keiningham, Vavra, Aksoy &amp; Wallard (2005), Reichheld &amp; Sasser (1990) and the cited page, each checked at source 2026-07-28. The table is the essay&#39;s own adjudication; every row&#39;s verdict is in the claim ledger. <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-a-vendor-page-invented-the-source-fig02/">View exhibit</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>