All characteristic values were deleted - header cannot be deleted

What causes this issue?

The characteristic is assigned to a material group hierarchy level, a
material group, or a characteristic profile - and is therefore already
used in transactional applications.
As a result, you cannot delete the characteristic value header, which
contains the type information for the characteristic.

System Response

The system issues an error message and will not allow you to continue with this transaction until the error is resolved.

How to fix this error?

Procedure for System Administrators

Error message extract from SAP system. Copyright SAP SE.