er acquire that customer in the first place. However, since sales people are compensated based on how many customers they bring in, not on how many customers stick around, you have an immediate problem. What is needed is a set of key performance indicators that address not just the primary mission of each of the different customer relationship groups, but that assigns responsibility for all customer relationship aspects to all of them. Different Organizations: Different Information The fact that it is extremely difficult to share customer information across organizational boundaries is another factor to consider. Each department in the organization has its own sources of information. Billing has the billing system. Customer service has the customer contact management system. Marketing has the customer database and market research facilities. Sales has a sales management system. Since each organization uses its own systems to direct the activities of its employees, it is extremely difficult to find out what people are doing in other departments. A salesperson knows if a prospect has been approached because the contact management system reports that information. But the salesperson does not know that a particular customer has called four times with a complaint because that information is stored only in the customer service system. eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook To solve that problem, everyone working with customers should know all of the available information about a customer regardless of which department they happen to work in. The real value of a customer, and the criteria for deciding how to treat that customer can only be determined when all of the relevant information is available. Problem No. 3 - Making Pertinent Customer Information Available Making more information about a customer available to any employee in contact with that customer prevents many problems and can definitely prevent churn. For example, say that Tom Smith has been a good customer for many years with a good paym