rn types in the secondary research material. THE CHURN REASONS TAXONOMY Figure 3-1 shows a complete taxonomy for all the major reasons that customers have for churning. This chart provides you with a handy reference for understanding the reasons for churn and how they relate to each other. Handets Technology Features Per Minute New Techn ology Delibera te Economics Activation Subsc ription Fee Quality Soci ial/P sychological Image Voluntary Convenience Experimentin g Friends/Family Co verage Call Quality Inc idental Finances Custo mer Service Location B illing Fraud Major Life Changes Involuntary Non- Payment t Internet Under-Utiliza tion Retail Channels Figure 3-1: Taxonomy of Churn eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook Two Major Categories of Churn Before getting into the more specific reasons for churn we start with two very obvious, very high-level categories that divide our churning customers into two useful groupings. Basically, we can divide all churners into the categories of voluntary and involuntary. The rest of this chapter will be dedicated to exploring the involuntary churn category. In the next chapter we will delve into the many voluntary churn reasons. INVOLUNTARY CHURN The easiest types of churners to identify are the involuntary churners. They are the customers that you decide should be removed from the subscribers list. Involuntary churn has turned out to be the biggest kind of churn problem for some providers and an almost non-existent category for others. This category includes people that are churned for fraud, non-payment, and under-utilization. Figure 3-2: Involuntary Churner Chapter 3 Fraud (Customers Who Cheat) A few years ago fraud was the biggest single problem that wireless companies faced. Ingenious criminals had figured out how to steal the identification code from passing cell phones and place them into other phones. This process, known as cloning, meant that a customer's phone number could be stolen and used by criminals to make phone calls for free. This probl