perimentation category showed up during interviews of a focus group. As with all of the churn reasons, it is difficult to know exactly how valid the experimentation reason actually is. It is very possible that this is given as a reason when people do not want to tell you the real reasons for their churn decision. CONVENIENCE As with many of the churn reasons we have considered, the types of churn events that occur as a result of convenience are probably not SO much reasons as contributing factors. The category of convenience churn includes all those types of activities that make it very easy for the customer to make a churn decision. Customers often name these convenience events as their churn reasons. Channel Churn One of the most nefarious and difficult to combat kinds of churn is what we call channel churn. Channel churn occurs when the agents and independent retailers that sell your services to consumers use that relationship to encourage customers to change carriers. In the most typical scenario, an agent will sign up a new customer for your firm based on a promotion you are running. Twelve months later the agent will realize that the customer's contract and handsets are old and that the customer may be interested in upgrades. Since the agent makes no commission on reinforcement of the existing contract, offering your competitor's package to that customer is an easy way for your agent to create revenue. Many times, the customer accepts the offer. Combating channel churn is extremely difficult. Detecting when channels are doing this kind of activity and when customers are accepting it is just about impossible. The only truly effective approach to the prevention of channel churn is to make sure that your customer has no reason to be interested in churning in the first place. Chapter 4 Promotion Churn Another channel-related convenience-based churn is promotion churn. Promotion churn occurs when your customer sees an interesting promotion from a competitor and decides to take it. Typically, promotion offers are