g and promoting more viable, interesting, and customer-focused relationship plans. Customers need to be offered a clear choice of alternative plans based on the level of need or service desired and then adjustment price, service, and quality accordingly. Talking about the fact that churn is a problem that the entire organization helps create is one thing; determining what role each part of the organization will play to contribute to the solution is another. The way a typical telecommunications organization is set up, and the way each customer relationship management organization perceives its role, leaves a vacuum of responsibility for the management of the customer relationship itself. eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook RATE PLAN-BASED OFFERINGS There are no quick, easy reorganization schemes, or clever market- ing campaigns that will help the telco address churn management problems in any profound way. If we make no changes in how the basic products and services are packaged and promoted to the consumer, then the inherent, underlying causes of the churn phe- nomenon will remain. Changing the Consumer Shopping Cycle The inherent problem that creates the churn in the first place is the combination of consumer attitudes and shopping cycles and the telecommunications products and consumer response models that a telco adopts in reaction to the consumers. I few want to significantly modify this business model, then we must change the basic underly- ing attitudes and conditions. What Consumers Shop For The Rate Plan What do consumers shop for when they consider telecommunications services? More importantly, what does the telecommunications organization create and promote as the primary unit of purchase? The fact remains despite all of the brand image building, all the talk about customer loyalty and all the attempts to appeal to the "softer side" of the consumer's psyche, what the telco sells to the consumer is a rate plan. Rate plans are how telcos package products. By examining the rate plan, 