om occurring is by maintaining its intended branding and image strategy. Companies with strong brand images tend to have a more loyal customer base than those companies that have a very weak or nonexistent brand image. To test the strength of your own company's brand image, ask yourself the question "Does our typical customer feel glad to be associated with our firm, or embarrassed when they see our brand and image advertising?" This is an important and difficult question for you to answer. Preventive Maintenance Everyone is familiar with the proverb "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This saying certainly applies when addressing the area of customer satisfaction. While many wireless providers are surprised to find out that they "suddenly" have a churn problem, many of these companies become victims of churn because they fail to remain focused on the needs of their customers over the long haul. A pre-emptive campaign should apportion a reasonable amount of time addressing the following areas within the company: Evaluating customer service and customer satisfaction lev- Upgrading and maintenance for billing and other support- ing information systems Monitoring and maintenance of service call quality Reviewing the basics of good telephony The problem here is determining exactly how much preventive maintenance is enough? How can you know when you are merely doing enough, or when you are going overboard? Luckily, there is an answer to this question, and the utilization of industry benchmarks can help you get the answer. For example, if the industry standard for customer service is $3 per customer per month and you find that your company is spending approximately this much also, then you know that the company is operating within reason. If the industry standard for customer satisfaction is at about 10 percent and your eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook company is at 12 percent, then you are in the ballpark here as well. The use of industry benchmark measures along with a little c