This research led to a more general conclusion - that relationships and products are intimately related. They are both ways of meeting customers' needs, and they both cost money to deliver to customers. As the dot.coms learnt, they are related in another way. If product profitability is not sufficient to sustain the costs of acquiring and maintaining customers in a relationship, then the whole company may collapse. There are also markets where if products are poorly managed, losses can destroy any attempt to develop better relationships. Take the example of automotive insurance, where risks are increased significantly if the company takes its eye off product profitability. For such companies, within-product CRM (cost-effective acquisition and retention of customers for each of their main products) is more important than cross-selling. The latter can add profit, but may be dangerous if decisions are taken which compromise individual product profitability because of supposed long-term relationship gains. An example would be accepting customers for one product who are certainly riskier, but who might be valuable in the longer term if they buy additional products. This should only be done if the probability of further value is well understood, and if this is true net value (eg these customers don't turn out to be riskier for other products too!).