Attrition Project Update 
CSAA and TRG to Present Findings at NAMTSE 2002

According to John M. Brady, President of TRG Associates, Inc., "Customer retention continues to be the single largest management challenge." He believes that typically much of the management effort and organizational focus goes into growing each dealer’s customer base and not into keeping customers.

Brady believes that the security industry has continued to improve at gathering and cataloguing industry specific performance parameters, but that the qualitative and quantitative measurement of customer attrition has not been properly established.

Since early November, CSAA has collaborated with TRG Associates to promote the Attrition Project, an attempt to develop a series of attrition definitions and methods.

The CSAA Web site, www.csaaul.org, has an Attrition Project section that includes background information on the project, as well as a position paper on attrition and a spreadsheet that can be used to gather attrition data.

The position paper, produced by TRG Associates, defines attrition, describes five commonly-used  methods to quantify attrition, recommends one of them and includes a case study.

As the position paper shows, there is a significant difference in the measurement of attrition by the different methods. For this reason, CSAA and TRG are trying to develop consensus within the industry on the use of one or two primary industry standards for measuring attrition.

In addition, the CSAA Attrition Project web section allows visitors to request a copy of the Excel/Lotus attrition tracking system template.

"As we at TRG Associates, Inc. head towards CSAA's 2002 NAMTSE seminar on 'Minimizing Customer Attrition', we continue to gather attrition information from CSAA members and others in the industry for the 2001 period," continues Brady.

"We look forward to presenting a summary of this information and reviewing attrition, the definition, how to utilize this measurement of management’s ability to maintain its customer base and most importantly, specific ways to control and reduce attrition in your company," added Brady.

The worksheets and position paper can be found on CSAA’s website (www.csaaul.org) by clicking on the top center blue bar that says “Participate in CSAA's Attrition Project” or by visiting http://www.csaaul.org/AttritionProject.htm.

Please e-mail your completed information to Jim Leese at TRG Associates  jleese@trgassociates.com by March 31, 2002. You may also get the information by contacting him at (860) 664-4101.

We anticipate having a very exciting session on the topic of “Minimizing Customer Attrition.” 

The attrition seminar will take place on April 28, 2002 at 9:00am at the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, Arizona. DON"T MISS IT!
NOTE: This seminar was originally scheduled for Saturday April 27, 2:00pm--it has been rescheduled!

Please visit http://64.226.207.204/NAMTSE/NANTSE02printableevents.asp
for the most up-to-date program.

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