ing of importance, and a competitive availability number for each churn factor for each customer. Once these values have been assigned, then we are in a position to generate the actual CCI for a given customer or group of customers. LOADING THE CUSTOMER CHURN INDEX - CUSTOMER VARIABLES So far, we have described a relatively simple way to take many variables into account to help us understand the customer's churn propensity. What we have not done, however, is describe exactly how to collect the values to load into our CCI. Although the CCI seems straightforward, it will be very challenging to fill it in accurately and completely. Because of this difficulty, we can approach its use several ways to help us achieve a maximum benefit for a minimum investment of time and energy. Chapter 14 Assigning the Customer Rankings and Importance of Factors We first need to assign our CCI the value for our firm ranking for each of the churn factors and the importance of these factors for each customer. These factors can be derived in several ways depending on what we are trying to accomplish and what kind of grouping we are trying to apply them to. Straightforward Individual Customer Surveys The easiest way to collect the information necessary for the CCI is to create and administer a survey. This survey could be issued via telemarketing, customer focus groups, customer service, or a phone exit interview when customers leave the firm. In all cases, the direct customer survey can provide valuable and tangible insight. The problem with customer surveys, of course, is that they are expensive and difficult to reproduce on a massive scale. Although issuing such questionnaires to all customers is logistically feasible, it is certainly not something you would want to do on a periodic basis. Therefore, we need to develop a method to execute a minimum number of such surveys, yet gain information needed to apply the results on a wider scale. Extrapolation for a Segment or Group Based on Sample Surveys To collect the information needed to f