Table 216 Aug 2026From “The retention number is measured from your side of the table”

Commercial due diligence: testing loyalty ownership

Four diagnostic audits to separate firm-owned loyalty from salesperson-owned defection risk before signing.

Table 2Commercial due diligence: testing loyalty ownership

Diligence Dimension	Standard Model Assumption	Empirical Finding (Palmatier et al., 2007)	Due Diligence Audit Action
Revenue Portability	Aggregate 90%+ retention means customer relationships belong to the enterprise	The study-specific SOL path to latent risk is b = 0.62 (R² = 0.38); the coefficient is not a customer-level probability	Rep-to-revenue concentration audit: Map the top 20% of revenue to individual rep tenure and relationship age
Account Growth Engine	Corporate brand and product line drive organic account expansion	Firm loyalty produces zero sales growth (b = -0.05, ns); growth is driven by reps (b = 0.16) and value (b = 0.24)	Cross-sell origin audit: Review whether new product adoption required rep-led bespoke selling or automated uptake
Pricing Power vs Retention	Customers renew because switching costs to another vendor are too high	Firm loyalty supports price premiums (b = 0.18), but personal loyalty provides the primary relationship buffer	Price elasticity interview sample: Test customer sensitivity to price increases versus rep reassignment
Integration Restructuring	Consolidating sales teams under an acquirer CRM creates immediate synergy	Disrupting rep alignment destroys the growth engine and triggers latent defection	Multi-threading index: Audit whether accounts have deep relationships with product/engineering teams or single-rep touchpoints

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

Source: Author's synthesis of the cited literature.

PNG4:3, 1600 × 1200, with the title, the source line and the attribution set in the image isoglu-2026-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02.png

From the essay

Growth that compounds

The retention number is measured from your side of the table

Customer retention in M&A hides who owns the relationship. Firm loyalty protects price premiums; growth and defection risk walk out with the salespeople.

16 Aug 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). Commercial due diligence: testing loyalty ownership [Table]. isoglu.com. https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02/

BibTeX

@misc{isoglu-2026-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02,
  author = {Isoglu, Sinan},
  title = {{Commercial due diligence: testing loyalty ownership}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Table 2, isoglu.com},
  url = {https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02/},
  note = {From the essay {The retention number is measured from your side of the table}}
}

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-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02/">
    <img src="https://isoglu.com/social/isoglu-2026-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02.png" alt="Table 2: Commercial due diligence: testing loyalty ownership" width="3200" height="2400">
  </a>
  <figcaption>Table 2: Commercial due diligence: testing loyalty ownership. Source: Author&#39;s synthesis of the cited literature. <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-the-retention-number-is-measured-from-your-side-fig02/">View exhibit</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>