People have emotional connections to their service providers. When they leave, they break that emotional attachment. It's just the same as ending a relationship. I delivered this to a client a few years ago, and a recent CMO discussion re-surfaced the subject. "All I care about," he told me, "is love, empathy and emotion." Measuring and encouraging those things in your customers is important, but relationships are a two way street, and it's very difficult to demonstrate that as a brand. This presentation explores the feelings of people at the point of churn, and what they are thinking about their relationship with their service provider; and it then explores the stages of a typical analytically driven, and highly automated retention process

1. Anthony Behan
Telecom Churn: Breaking Up
Is Hard to Do
IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

2. Do You Love Your Customers?
 Really?
 Truly?
 Madly?
 Deeply?
 Honestly?
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

3. Because here’s something new:
 Your customers love you!
 Or maybe not…
 …maybe they hate you…
 …maybe they like you a lot, just not in that
way…
 …maybe they wish secretly they knew you
better…
 …maybe they think they could really love
you, if only they could get to know you
better…
 …maybe they think you think they’re
invisible…
 …if only you’d open your eyes!
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

4. Churn Is…
 …about change…
 …about falling out of love…
 …about moving on…
 …about redefining our relationship…
 …about falling for someone else…
 …about looking for a fresh start…
 …about a more mature relationship…
 …about a less needy partner…
 …about finding someone who understands
my needs…
 …about finding someone who listens…
 …about finding someone who isn’t so
selfish…
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

5. But hey -
“I can change!”
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

6. So it’s time to get real
Your customers feel and think and live and breathe
and experience an emotional connection to you,
their service provider, your brand, and the device
through which they use your product.
How do you treat them – really? Can you listen
more? Can you empathise more?
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

7. Customer Retention Systems
Some relationships are bound to experience
turbulent times, periods of uncertainty where
questions are asked about whether the
relationship is right for the parties concerned,
whether perhaps its time to talk about a more
open relationship, to see other people.
Like the sales rep at your competitor.
Then what do we do? We need to talk.
IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

8. The Churn Prevention Process
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 The churn process can be in part automated, but requires several steps.
 Churn prediction is only as good as the follow-up action that is taken in order to address
churn
 Each step requires different decisions to be made, different analyses to be conducted
 Understanding business objectives is key to designing an effective churn prevention system
 The cheapest way to prevent churn is to never let it get this far…
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

9. Analyse Customer Behaviour
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 What behavioural information do I have? Call Center Interactions? Online Searches?
Unstructured text from blogs, wikis, and other external sources that my customers are
publishing? Billing history? CDRs? Signalling Information?
 What should I track?
 What should I aggregate?
 What should I trigger based on (e.g. “watchwords” in the call center?)
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

10. Predict Churn Propensity
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 What are the indicators of churn?
– Lower consumption rates? Higher consumption rates?
– Greater mean time to top-up? Lesser mean-time to top-up?
– Unusual call-center or online search activity?
– High number of dropped calls?
– Increased usage of data services?
– Friends and colleagues churning?
– Telling the CSR that they are looking at competitor offers that are cheaper in a noncontract, number portability enabled environment!
 Predictive Analytics Solutions correctly deployed maximise accuracy
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

11. Prioritise Retention Candidates
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 Who do you want to keep? Who would you prefer left?
– Profitability analysis
– Lifetime Value Analysis
– Propensity to adopt new services (particularly growth services like data)
– Influenced Revenue
• Social Network Analysis
• Termination revenue
• Net Promoter Score
Do they tell all their friends about the service and how good it is?
Do they tell all their friends about the service and how bad it is?
– Do they call the call center “too frequently”?
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

12. Next Best Action Recommendation
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 What should we do? What action should be taken?
 Is the user likely to respond to a text bundle offer?
 Should it be free? Discounted?
 Should it be a call bundle, data bundle, new device?
 How should the offer be communicated? Reactive (when he calls the call center, tops up, or
other such interaction?), proactive (outbound telemarketing call, SMS, email etc)
 How can the offer be accepted and / or tracked? Should it be “defaulted” – i.e. awarded and
communicated, rather than communicated and conditionally awarded?
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

13. Campaign Execution
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 How are campaigns run?
 How does the call center action the campaign?
 How can a campaign be automated through SMSC / VAS / IN integration?
 How can campaigns be tested, launched, tweaked mid-execution, evaluated and retired?
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation

14. Campaign Analysis & Success Measurement
Analyse
Customer
Behaviour
Predict Who Is
Most Likely to
Churn
Score Who You
Would Like to
Keep
Identify Next
Best Action
Execute
Communication
to Retain
Analyse
Behaviour
Post-Campaign
 How should a campaign be measured?
 How can success be measured?
– Measuring a negative – not leaving – can be tricky;
• not porting the number
• continued or increased service consumption and/or top-ups
• continuing to measure churn propensity and watching it recede
• time interval measurements & trending
 How can this success be localised and then generalised
– What works for one segment may not work for another
– How can the lessons of a successful campaign be learned by other campaigns?
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IBM Global Telecommunications Industry
© 2014 IBM Corporation