nction. Most startup telecoms and dot.coms cannot afford their own personal market research department, but just about all of them make use of external market research sources. Market research provides advertising and upper management with valuable information about customers and their feelings about the company. Marketing The marketing function typically includes advertising and market research, but may also have a totally different set of responsibilities. Marketing can include product development, brand image creation and protection of that image, development of customer acquisition strategies, and a wide range of other customer related areas. Direct Marketing Direct marketing, another potential subset of marketing, is the discipline involved in the marketing activities that touch customers on a personal basis. The two most common media of direct marketing are mail and phone. The direct marketing discipline, as opposed to the other forms of marketing, is possible only with the use of large marketing databases. These systems allow the direct marketing organization to manage the names, addresses, and personal information about millions of customers and to launch specific campaigns to effect their individual wants, needs, and buying patterns. A direct marketing staff may include an in-house mail shop that develops, creates, and executes mail campaigns and/ or an outbound-call-center that executes telemarketing campaigns. Sales Outside of the realm of marketing we have several other disciplines. One of them is the sales function. The sales function may include a large staff of salespeople who call directly on consumers (a consumer sales function) and/or a sales force that calls on agents, distributors, and retailers (a wholesale sales function). Amazingly, the sales organization is often left out of CRM and churn discussions, which is ironic since no single part of the company has more direct and indirect customer contact than this group. Chapter 9 Channel Management Sometimes the job of managing the different sal