hurners? One group may realize that this is a churn situation and eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook recognize the need to understand who these customers are and why they are churning before they build a campaign that will convince them not to leave. Alternatively, they may say, ' We really don't know anything about these people or why those statisticians think they will leave. Let's just send them one of our typical acquisition campaigns and see if we can get them to sign up again!" That is the wrong response. What do you think will happen if the marketing group goes with the second option? Think about it. You are a customer who, for a number of reasons (price, quality, image etc.), has been unhappy with your service provider. Chances are good that you have started to look around for alternatives and that you are thinking about your options. Now, suddenly, you get an impersonal advertisement in the mail. It does not acknowledge that the sender knows that you are a customer. It does not acknowledge that you might be unhappy. All it does is give you some impersonal pitch to sign up with a company that you already subscribe to. Your likely emotional response will be to churn quicker and more decidedly than you would have otherwise. We call these types of promotions churn stimulation campaigns because they actually motivate people to churn quicker than if they hadn't received a mailing. Ironically, churn stimulation campaigns usually operate with churn prediction models that are highly accurate. Of course, the reason they are SO accurate is because they actually help to create the churn. Stealing Your Own Customers Another all too common practices is the steal-your-own-customers campaign. This scenario goes something like this: Your sales have been declining because there are no more new customers to be found in the market. Your sales force is desperate to increase the sales numbers and make their key performance indicators. Now, the sales staff realizes that many customers' contracts are abou