On 2008-05-13, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
>> At 11 May 2008 06:49:00 -0700 SMS wrote:
>>
>>>> Can we at least agree that your above stated reason for their churn is
>>>> your _opinion_ rather than any independently documented evidence?
>>> No, but if it makes you happy, we can say that it's _one_ of the reasons
>>> for their high churn.
>>
>> Then I have to play the "Navas card": cite, please? Point to ANY evidence
>> coverage is a leading cause of their churn.
>
> "http://tinyurl.com/5mprh8" among many others.

You're kidding, right? That page is an illustration of a textbook
example which begins, on the previous page, the the hypothetical "So,
lets say for example, there is a customer who feels that the company
is excellent at everything except for a poor job in coverage. [...]
See figure 14.5". The chart not only has nothing to do with T-Mobile,
it in fact has nothing to do with real life. It is a made-up example.

> But no, I can't prove that T-Mobile's reasons for churn are not
> different than the research indicates for carriers in general. In fact,

By "research" what are you referring to? Not the line above this one, I
hope.

> if they did a study that broke down reasons for churn by carrier I'd
> expect T-Mobile to have a higher percentage of customers that left due
> to coverage issues than with the other carriers.
>
> Think about why everyone doesn't switch to T-Mobile? It's not handset

Who says they're not? While the churn number is always interesting
it isn't all that relevant to results and higher churn isn't always
bad (that's a paraphrase from page 238 in your textbook reference). What
counts to both the top and bottom lines are customer numbers and ARPU,
or customer numbers times ARPU. T-Mobile has had the highest real
(not-by-acquisition) growth rate of the biggest 5 wireless companies for
quite a few years now, and while you might think their prices are lower
their ARPU is still as high or higher than the bigger companies, which is
good business if you can do it. If the kept that up forever they will
have all the customers.

You seem fixated on that churn number even though it is just about
the least important and least meaningful measure of anything, while
ignoring the numbers which are both much more important and much
easier to understand. If everything else is good a high churn
number may not be bad; it may even be that a high churn number is
a necessary consequence of high growth, and high growth at a decent
ARPU is an unqualified good.

Dennis Ferguson