 dominance is strong enough, one might mistakenly believe that competition can be effectively shut out indefinitely through aggressive promotion, investment, and management of the customer base. Catching Up With the Times No matter how good your current position, the reasonable business person will assume that churn will be reality sooner or later. Although some regulatory bodies or competitors will lag behind, leaving the existing telco provider with an advantage, eventually, the national and global market forces will catch up and churn will happen in that market as well. eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook Churn Only Happens When Conditions Are Right Given the basic assumption that churn will happen in your market, the next challenge is to resolve the how and when. If churn was nothing more than a byproduct of doing business, then all telcos would experience it all the time. No, churn is inevitable, but when and how it happens is a direct result of certain conditions. Those conditions signal the onset or the rapid increase in your current churn rate. Figure 7-2: Churn happens when conditions are right The End of the Expansion Phase Usually, the first time you company notices churn is when the rapid expansion of the telco marketplace begins to slow down. Telecommunication is an incredibly useful and popular technology. When it is first introduced to the market, a huge surplus demand builts up. It takes most companies one to two years of very aggressive growth and expansion just too keep up with the backlog of demand. However, as the market begins to saturate at the current Chapter 7 price/performance ratio (as you begin to reach the maximum number of people that are willing to pay the price you are asking for the service), expansion will begin to slow down. When the slowdown occurs, every telco provider in the market has the same problem. They are all geared up for very high sales numbers and those numbers are becoming harder and harder to make. When this happens, they inevitably will begin