g, advertising, promotion, and sales in the development of customer relationships is known as the Costa model. The Costa model attempts to explain what needs to be accomplished to convert consumer into a customer. As the Costa model shows in Figure 17- 4, we must accomplish several missions to make this conversion. Awareness The first subject that any company has to address, if it hopes to convert a consumer into a customer, is to make the consumer aware of the company. Awareness is the process of battling against the millions of stimuli that a consumer contends with in a given day and making sure that, somehow, the consumer becomes aware that your company exists and is a viable source of the products and services Chapter 17 Awareness Familiarity Preference Negotiation Transaction Figure 17-4: The Costa Model that you are selling. Familiarity After a consumer has become aware of your company, the next challenge you have to face is to make that consumer familiar with your company and your company's name. The process of creating familiarity is getting the consumer to trust that you are a company that will be around for a while. Familiarity, therefore, is a special kind of awareness. Preference After familiarity has been established, the next objective for the customer relationship function is to get the consumer to prefer your offer to the competition's offer. When preference is established, your company begins to experience presence in the marketplace. By accomplishing consumer preference, the customer relationship group creates an environment that makes sales and the maintenance of long-term customer relationships a reality. Negotiation After preference, the consumer will typically move into the state of negotiation. During the negotiation phase, consumers engage in dia- log with the company. They start to consider the actual purchase of a product or service. Negotiation may be a physical process where consumers sit down with a sales person or agent and negotiate a eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn