how much trouble it is for them to take on a new provider. They must be very motivated (unhappy) to invest that much energy into making the decision to switch! Churn Can Only Be Managed By The Entire Organization Taking this into account, it should be clear why filling a position of Chief Churn Officer (CCO) will not put a dent into your churn numbers. No, churn is created by an entire organization failing (usually in many small ways) to meet the expectations of customers. Only an organization-wide effort can change your current churn situation in any dramatic fashion. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT From a broader perspective, we see that churn is really just a part of the bigger problem of customer relationship management (CRM). Although we do not intend to present an entire thesis on the execution of CRM, we need to establish at least a rudimentary understanding of the discipline and the ways that churn fits into its scope. The CRM Components of the Value Chain Realistically, one could argue that CRM is nothing more than the label given to a certain subset of links from the value chain of the organization. In other words, to understand what CRM and its scope of activity is, we have to revisit the value chain and determine which functions fall under that definition. Chapter 9 In the case of telecommunications, the value chain links numbered 8 through 13, which include the customer touchpoint functions (billing, customer service, sales, marketing, etc.), constitute the CRM sub-group of the value chain. The Customer Relationship Management Group Customer Billing Marketing Credit Services Operations Sales Figure 9-4: CRM sub-value chain A CRM-SPECIFIC VIEW OF THE BUSINESS Ignoring all the idiosyncrasies that make the telecom different than the dot.com, we can create a CRM-specific organizational view that helps us understand how the different parts of the company work together to manage the customer relationship (and consequently the customer churn decision). Customer Touchpoint Organizations Advertising Metrics,