. When consumers begin to have a preference for your firm, they are able to assemble a picture, both mental and emotional, that causes them to believe that your firm is comparatively better. Preference requires an even higher level of emotional investment from the consumer. eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook High Activity - Negotiation Once you get to negotiation, the customer is fully engaged on an emotional level. A decision to change the status quo is imminent. The negotiation zone is probably the most critical for the organization hoping to do something about churn in their marketplace. Keep in mind that consumers negotiate not only when they sign up, but also later when they reflect on potential substitutes. The negotiating done after customers sign up for service is the mental energy they spend on thinking about moving on to a competitor. Negotiation: What a prospect does before becoming your customer - or your competitor's customer. Negotiation, in this case, is what we call the process that customers go through when they actively invest mental and emotional energy into considering how alternative providers might provide a better deal. Action - Transactions The level of emotional investment by the consumer at this stage is at the highest, and it is here where the churning actually occurs. Although the decision to churn has generally been made by the time the transactions occur, the telco can sometimes reverse a decision by reopening the negotiation process. Emotional Investment Zones and the Shopping Cycle When we look at these zones from the perspective of the customer's activity rather than from the company's objectives, we see that the zones are directly related to the shopping cycle that the consumer decides to employ in relation to telco purchase decisions. Chapter 18 The particular model that a consumer chooses to follow for telecommunications purchase decision defines his or her reaction to each of the zones. Customers who only want to think about telecommunication issues when