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Customer churn can be devastating for your business’s finances. Not only will losing a customer and the revenue they bring set you back, but you’ll also need to invest money and time into marketing and onboarding a replacement customer to cover the lost income.
It’s easier, and cheaper, to hold onto the customers you already have. But how do you reduce the likelihood of them churning?
Lucky for you, we’ve got the answers! We sat down with leading experts and pulled together the top fifteen most effective ways to prevent churn.
While there are a myriad of factors that can go into churn reduction, one of the most overwhelming trends we se work time and time again is simple: listen to your customers and act on the feedback you receive.
Before we dive into the expert responses, let’s take a look at why you should do all you can to reduce churn, along with some of the most common causes of it.
Maintaining a low churn rate is, unsurprisingly, one of the best ways to grow a healthy business. For one, keeping existing customers is significantly less costly than finding new ones. Customer loyalty will help your business thrive in the long-term, and losing customers is expensive.
If you have 10 customers, and each contributes $5,000 a month to your business’s overall revenue, losing one customer costs you $60,000 per year.
To replace the lost revenue, you’ll have to spend time and money on marketing your services to a new client, which could take months. Then there’s the cost of onboarding them. You’re losing money at two stages: when your original customer leaves, and during the process of looking for a replacement.
It’s more cost-effective to ensure your customer doesn’t leave you.
The value of keeping churn as low as possible is clear, but the question then becomes, what causes churn to happen at all? A customer may decide to leave your product for a variety of reasons, some of which may not be in control, but a few of the most common causes of churn are pricing, product/market fit, user experience, and customer service.
To counter price and product/market fit being reasons for churn, you’ll need to ensure your service is being sold to the right people and your customers know they won’t get your unique offering anywhere else. To combat user experience and customer service becoming reasons for churn, you should put your efforts into maximizing the customer’s relationship with your product and the rest of your company.
Finding a more cost-effective service than yours gives customers a reason to churn. How do you stop this? By explaining your unique selling proposition (USP). If your product or service is costlier than that of your competitors, show your customers why spending more with you is worth it.
If your salespeople need to hit high numbers when making sales, that could be contributing to churn. The pressure to sell can force sales teams to forget about who the right customer is, and sell to anyone they can. These customers will soon know your services aren’t the right fit for them and won’t stick around for long.
Nobody wants to pay for a product that’s hard to use, or barely used at all. In either situation, your customer will question why they made their purchase in the first place. If they’re finding a part of your service difficult, offer to help them. If they’re underusing a part of your service, walk them through how to use those features.
Getting a customer to use your product is one thing. But what other ways are they interacting with your brand? What’s their relationship like with your account managers and customer service teams? What do they think of your website content and social media channels? If none of this is positive, customers may churn.
So, now we know what typically causes churn and how badly it can hurt your business, but the question then becomes, what do you do to slow it down? We spoke with over forty leading experts in the SaaS industry and compiled the top 15 most effective solutions for churn reduction, just for you. These cover everything from holding regular 1:1 success calls where you can learn how and why customers are using your services, to identifying the customers who’re most likely to churn at every stage of the product lifecycle.
Although there are a variety of approaches you can take, and each solution will have a varying degree of success depending on your company, at the core of almost every single solution is this seemingly simple idea: listen to what your customers are telling you and respond proactively to their needs. Find out how and why they’re having an issue with your product, and respond before this issue becomes a reason for them to churn. Show them that you want them to have the best possible experience with your service, and they’ll be more likely to stick around.
While this may seem obvious in nature, it may not be as easy in practice as you may think. Let’s go through our tried and true methods for listening to your customers and reducing your churn.
Try holding regular 1:1 success calls with your customers. These calls will give you a valuable opportunity to learn how and why they’re using your services, and what challenges they’re facing when they do. You’ll also have the chance to discover how you can bring extra value to their lives.
Track your Net Promoter Score (NPS) to gather information on what your customers like about your product, as well as what they don’t. Assign numeric scores and sort customers into categories: detractors, passives, or promoters. Include a form where customers can elaborate on their score, and listen to what they have to say. What are they having trouble with? Respond to as much feedback as you can — positive and negative — as soon as you can.
Despite your best efforts, some customers will want to walk away for any number of reasons. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to win them back as they’re leaving. Find out as much information as you can about why they’re unhappy, and be prepared to counter their objections with a tailored offer. This could be anything from an extended trial period to a discount.
Are they cancelling because they were your primary user, and they’re leaving to go work for another company? You’ll want to make sure that your Customer Success Managers finds out which company they’re moving to and follows up with them to see if your product can be of use to them at their new place.
Once they’ve purchased your product, how are customers going to use it? What are they hoping to achieve with it? Create an engagement plan that’s easy to follow and shows them how they can use it to reach goals early and often. Talk to your customers and find out what they want to do first and start working on a plan to help them succeed. Another thing you can do is re-evaluate your onboarding process. Could this be improved in any way to show customers how to make the most of your product?
Never overlook just how devastating poor customer service can be. Many customers will never do business with a company again if they have a bad experience, while many more will tell others about their negative experience. Even average service can have terrible consequences for your business. So make your customer service exceptional and memorable. This may help you discover problems you were unaware of before. When you do, act on them promptly.
Why should your customer stick with you? You can’t just expect them to stay around because you’re doing a good job. Reward them for their loyalty and show them how much their partnership means to you. But don’t just give them any reward. Put some thought into what you’re going to offer. This could be something that helps them achieve their goals, or a financial incentive at the right time.
Live chat lets customers get 1:1 help whenever they need it. If they get stuck with a product or service, they can get immediate support. Make a note of what they’re saying, as these conversations present an opportunity to identify common problems and improve your product, user experience, marketing materials, and much more.
Are your users becoming inactive when using your product or service? Try sending them a message. It could be that they’ve become distracted, or haven’t been able to find what they were looking for. An in-app message could be a useful way of showing them how to find what they’re after. Alternatively, you could send a reminder email, pointing out all the helpful features they haven’t used yet or if they’ve been inactive for a certain amount of time.
Starting to see the same questions and challenges pop up again and again? Create a knowledge base full of resources on how to overcome these common problems, and make it clear to customers where they can find this. For content ideas, use the conversations you observed in your live chat support, your NPS scores, 1:1 success calls, and user engagement plans as inspiration.
You want your customer to stick with you for the long-term. They’ll want this too, as it can be frustrating to bounce from one supplier to another when something isn’t working as well as they expect it to, or if they’re feeling under-appreciated. So consider offering them a discounted contract for being a long-term customer. Show them you value their commitment.
People like to be a part of something. If your business doesn’t create that impression, it could be the reason customers are churning. Nobody wants to feel undervalued by the companies they’re doing business with. So get them involved with as many parts of your business as you can. Invite them to take part in surveys, contribute to blog posts, or invite them to webinars where they can share their thoughts and experiences.
Your product may have several features, with customers only using one or two of them. This doesn’t necessarily mean trouble. But it can help to show users how they can build habits around other features that can be useful to them. Your customers will appreciate you showing them how they can get extra value out of your service, as they’ll feel like they’re getting more for their money.
Marketing isn’t just for attracting new customers. It’s about showing current customers how they can get maximum value out of your products and services too. Create blog posts, social media content, and email marketing campaigns about improving the customer’s experience, or letting them know about loyalty rewards.
No two customers are the same. Each will have their own unique set of challenges and preferred approaches for overcoming them. And they can sniff out a copied-and-pasted answer from a mile away. Just one of these missteps could be enough to encourage customers to churn. So segment your customers based on the challenges they tell you about, how they use your services, and what content they read the most. Show them you’re paying attention.
Where are customers stalling in the product lifecycle? Was there a problem with the onboarding process, are they using your service less and less, or are there parts of your product that are going unused? Zoom-in on where issues are coming up, and offer to resolve these problems as quickly as you can. Parative's Revenue Scoring Engine enables you to get an in-depth overview of your customer accounts and any early indications of risk.
Read on to see how business leaders and marketers have approached the problem of customer churn.
Casey Hill
Bonjoro | Head of Growth
We send every new customer a personal video email. It create an immediate positive experience right off the bat and helps the customer feel like more than a number. Also, we find that customers are far more likely to respond and bring up questions once they have that personal line of connection. Between 2019-2020 we reduced churn by nearly 20% through both personal welcome videos and check-ins after 1 months on our product.
Andy Crestodina
Orbit Media Studios | Co-founder / CMO
Call your customers. Schedule time to talk to them in 1x1 conversations. Learn how they're using your product. What they love. What they ignore.
There are two immediately outcomes: learning and love. First, you're going to learn a about the fit between your product and the market and get ideas for improvement.
Second, that customer will feel some love from you. They'll forever be more likely to advocate for you, recommend you and stick around. ❤
Every week, we make calls like this. There is no barrier between us and our customers.
Bill Rice
Kaleidico | Founder/CEO
Have regularly scheduled check-ins with not only your client point of contact, but also their leadership. Focus on reviewing expectations (ideally you have been working against a plan or set of specific business objectives) and presenting your performance against those expectations.
We like to use the following cadence. Set a quarterly plan, using OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), and then do bi-weekly check-ins and an end of quarter review and reset for the coming quarter. In our experience, this keeps everyone in alignment and makes for multi-year client relationships!
John Doherty
Credo | Founder/CEO
Other than having a product that satisfies a customer's need, the best strategy we've implemented for reducing customer churn on a high ticket service is having regular check-ins via account management to adjust strategy as needed so that they can continue or start to see more value. We also implemented a higher touch onboarding sequence to make sure everything is set up well before we begin working together.
Chris Martin
FlexMR | Chief Marketing Officer
A key tactic for reducing churn is a focus on product stickiness - especially in B2B markets. At FlexMR, we tend to find that the more teams and individuals that rely on our platform and build it into their regular daily operations, the lower the risk of churn. There's two driving factors behind this. The first is simply penetration. The more embedded the product, the more it becomes part of the business.
But secondly, value. The same product used by more staff delivers significantly more value and ROI than a product used by a single team.
To generate product stickiness, we place a high premium on regular client success calls, the objective of which is not just to evaluate current usage but scope out how the product can bring increased value to other teams and challenges within a client's business.
Kenzi Wood
Kenzi Writes | Owner / Writer
Increasing value (instead of decreasing it) over time. If you continue to give clients more than what they signed up for, it's easier for them to stay for the long haul.
For example, over the course of working with a client, I might learn that they need help not only writing blogs but with meta descriptions, images, etc. I offer that without an additional cost as a way to build goodwill and encourage clients to stay with me.
Amar Ghose
ZenMaid | CEO
We handle software objections during the cancelation process which helps us to keep trial users and paying users alike. When a customer starts their cancelation process we find out why with a multiple choice question. Depending on what they respond we'll offer a discount, a call with our team, an extended trial, and more, all automatically.
The discount offered is massive (75% off for 3 months) and usually keeps people on. After month 4, when their price goes back to 100%, about 4 in 10 are still with us :-)
Darrell Evans
Yokel Local | Co-founder
Create a User Engagement Plan. Products do a good job of helping new customers get set up. But what next? The customer has to think. Develop a simple-to-follow engagement plan to get the customer a win (early and often).
Right after set up, ask them what would they like to do first (identify the top 3 things). Then deliver them a step-by-step sequence to help them achieve that goal. Customers don't churn what they use. Get them using the product and winning validating their reasons to buy.
Canva did a fantastic job of this when I signed up and made me feel like a graphic designer though I'm not.
Mike Lieberman
Square 2 | CEO and Chief Revenue Scientist
Most companies stop actively educating people once they become customers. Instead, continue nurturing customers with highly educational, creative, and entertaining content while they're customers. This helps them feel better about your brand, gives them a chance to share your content with potential prospects, and allows you to introduce your customers to the full value associated with your products and services, including driving additional revenue from add on products and services.
Make sure this content isn't promotional but stories about other customers and their experiences.
Robert Johns
UNINCORPORATED | Director of Operations
As an agency, we've committed to communicate truthfully and give feedback in a respectfully candid way, both to each other and to our clients. We want clients to see us as a partner, not simply a vendor, and one way to build that type of relationship is through honest feedback, even when it isn't pretty.
Not only does this build trust with the client because they know they're going to get the truth, but ultimately it leads to better results because you can dig into and solve real problems.
Paige Arnof-Fenn
Mavens & Moguls | Founder & CEO
To increase retention/reduce churn my tip is to disconnect from technology and focus on cultivating human, face to face relationships when not social distancing. Meeting for coffee or lunch even virtually can accomplish so much more than e-mail exchanges, social media posts, etc. and it is a great way to get to know people better, their interests, hobbies, and dreams.
I have found that building relationships is what drives my business and technology supports them once they are solidified. Technology helps advance the conversation but it will never replace the human interaction that builds trust over time.
Before the virus hit I planned lunch meetings ~3 days a week and invited clients to events I think they might enjoy attending to spend time together. It is impossible to time your outreach so that you are in front of clients exactly when they need your help so I just try to stay in regular communication with them so that when they have a problem I can help them solve they will think of me first.
We are all in the relationship business after all. Wasn’t it Woody Allen who said 80% of success is just showing up. It is a strategy that has worked for me.
Kent J Lewis
Anvil | President
Bi-annual client check-ins. Twice a year, I reach out to all 35 clients and schedule time to talk about the overall relationship, what's working and where we can improve. We often catch up personally and discuss longer-term strategy. Not only is it an effective retention tool, it helps identify growth opportunities.
Jói Sigurdsson
CrankWheel | CEO
Whenever a cancellation request comes in, we reach out personally to try to understand the reason, and to try to remove any barriers the subscriber may have had from getting value from our product.
Sometimes, they just need a bit of hands-on training, or their plan might simply be a bit larger than they need, and we are able to prevent churn by providing training, right-sizing their plan, or making other adjustments that bring them back to feeling comfortable with their subscription.
Lewis Kemp
Lightbulb Media | CEO
We are huge advocates of personalisation. All your customers are unique, so they should not be receiving generic copy and paste content with no emotion. Aggressively segment your audience based on the topics & styles of content they have responded best towards historically, and then double down on giving them what you know they like. Make them feel like every piece of content you create has been made specifically for them.
Larysa Chaplin
Expert Circle | Managing Director
Support campaigns.
A lot of companies have a “set it and forget it” approach to their customers. And if the customer doesn`t reach out with complaints - it seems like everything is good and well. While that could be the case, the businesses with such approach are risking losing clients unexpectedly.
Also, they are missing out on a valuable intel witch they can gather from their clients to help with the client retention and potential upsell opportunities.
I recommend regular support campaigns. It is a simple email outreach to the clients asking them how happy they are, if they are using the product and maybe they need help. This is a good conversation starter, it helps identifying unhappy clients and helping them reducing the risk of them canceling.
At the same time, a lot of the clients would come with questions about the products which creates a conversation which potentially converts into additional deals.
Conducting regular supports campaigns helps keeping the relationships for longer and develops trust and loyalty both to the company and to the product. The additional upside is that in the times of crisis customers who have been looked after are a lot more supportive and understanding, and sometimes it is a lifesaving difference for the business in need.
Aiza Coronado
CaaSocio | Co-Founder & Copy Strategist
Getting your onboarding right (and automate its personalization) so your success and support team can focus on assisting users who need help.
Maneeza Aminy
Marvel Marketers | CEO
High Integrity Relationships. We have built a Global Award Winning Marketing Agency with no Sales Function and no Dedicated Marketer. The only way to do this is by stepping up to solve hard problems and given clients an exceptional experience over and over again. If the relationship is there, EVERYthing else is easy. If the relationship is not there, everything is harder.
Clients and people in general work with who they want to work with not who they have to work with.
At Marvel Marketers, we inherit the client's business problems and partner closely with them as an equal to solve them. When an organization can count on you every time when things are going good or not so good, that trust is what retains the client for you.
No amount of activities replaces a genuine authentic relationship. We are very grateful to all of our clients who have trusted us with their businesses.
Anna Kaine
ESM Inbound | Director of Marketing
Preventing customer churn for ESM Inbound starts with partnering with the correct clients. We are strong advocates of the inbound methodology, which includes the creation (and regular review of) buyer personas. Buyer personas are semi-fictional, generalised representations of our ideal customers. Rather than accepting work from every enquiry, ESM Inbound makes conscious effort to ensure our clients are compatible.
By adhering to a set of client suitability standards, we reduce customer churn - we know going into each project or retainer that the working relationship has strong foundations already.
This personal touch is something that continues beyond the sales process. As a client of ESM Inbound you will be assigned an account manager who will be both your single point of contact and a specialist in the focus of your retainer - be that content marketing, strategy development, automation or website development.
Moreover, our retainers are flexible for clients that need marketing and development support to scale as they do.
A tailored working relationship starts with a full inbound marketing audit where we review your marketing strengths and the opportunities to improve, devising quick wins and/or tripwire services for customers. Weekly or fortnightly strategic calls with account managers ensures our clients feel cared for and can see tangible progress on their project.
Our mission to make Everybody Smile More starts from the very first touch point we have with prospects, and is at the core of every interaction and piece of work we create for clients from thereon in. Because we live by our values, and have a true sense of who we are, we prevent customer churn.
Dave Freund
Inter | Partner
Keeping a quarterly pulse on your customers satisfaction with your product or service is imperative. However, it has to be executed in a way that allows the customer to comfortable express their feedback without any bias. We send out a Typeform that we've created to track our Net Promoter Score (NPS) and overall relationship with our clients. This helps to keep us informed and one step ahead if any problems were to arise.
Al Tepper
TepFu | Founder
To quote Gary Vaynerchuk, our best strategy in this regard, is to CARE. When we care, truly care, about our customers, when we put their needs first, they feel the love and are significantly less likely to leave us.
Ed Leake
AdEvolver | Founder
We're still new and growing, so my answer is biased towards that mindset. Hopefully resonating with many early stage Saas founders out there.
My answer is also a big cliche - do things that don't scale. Sorry, but it's true!
For each customer who converts to a paying subscription, I record a simple welcome and thank you video. Nothing fancy, just me on my camera-phone. Sometimes in my garage.
I thank them for their support and outline what we're currently working on. It takes a few minutes per user. The thank you is nice and hopefully the 'what's coming soon' excited them to stick around.
So far I've recorded 50 videos over the past couple of months and the feedback has been excellent. Customers love receiving them. I will, therefore, keep recording them... but perhaps ask me how I feel after 1,000!
Trey Gibson
SPOTIO | CEO
There's so many tactical and strategic moves we've attempted over the years to reduce churn and many been successful having cut it by over 60%. One option that is often overlooked that made a huge difference for us was bringing on a better customer and/or saying no to the wrong customer.
As a salesperson myself I always want to say "YES" and close the deal, however if the customer isn't a good fit, doesn't have a pain/problem we're really good at addressing or isn't committed to making a change then they have a much, much higher likelihood of churning. So we basically are trying to prevent churn before it even has a chance of happening.
Charles Musselwhite
Musselwhite Marketing | Co-owner
IMO, even more important (in most cases) than having an awesome product or service is the communication established with your customer or client. For us we focus on recurring business and have learned if we aren't talking to our clients routinely they start to wonder what is going on, feel buyers remorse and eventually end up bouncing.
We've learned and implemented a communication strategy that keeps our clients and customers involved and up to date on progress which has drastically reduced our churn and increased our customer lifetime value.
Liz Hawkins Tahawi
Onfleet.com | Director of Marketing
Onfleet is a last mile delivery management software company. We serve over 1,000 customers in over 90 countries with tiered service level plans. Launching an "EBR" program (Executive Business Review) out of our Success Team enables us to nurture and educate a larger group of customers.
Many companies perform "QBRs" (quarterly), but our program has more flexibility with timing and goes to a broader not only enterprise group. Serving customers of any size with a sophisticated, personalized review of their business helps us reduce churn.
In fact, many of our larger customers joined us as start-up's and grew, so this type of attention helps us retain customers for the future as they expand.
April Sullivan
EntreLeverage | Online Business Manager & Launch Strategist
Red carpet customer service. Everyone on our team understands and demonstrates that client care is our number one metric for success. No emails or questions go unanswered, always go above and beyond what you are asked for, always do your best to make them smile when reading your response.
In a world of automated everything, our clients feel know that we always have the time and space to take excellent care of them.
Kelly Wilhelme
Weidert Group | Marketing Manager
Implementing a voice of the customer program with one-question customer feedback surveys (so the response rate is high) when key milestones are met in the foundational work to launch their inbound programs, as well as semi-annual NPS calls with our President for each client.
Matt Solar
nDash | VP of Marketing
Ensuring easy access to the entire team, including our co-founders and CEO.
At face value, any given issue might seem like a non-critical issue but for that user, in that moment, it can be a very frustrating experience. Ensuring the entire nDash team is always accessible to provide support has helped users get their job done well without delays and helped build long term relationships between the company and our community of freelancers and brands.
Katie Oberthaler
Ziflow | Marketing Manager
Investing in high-quality customer service is paramount to our ability to reduce customer churn. Since our software is used by marketing teams and agencies that proof a high volume of time-sensitive content projects, the availability of our enhanced support offerings maintains the highest levels of customer satisfaction in our industry and reduces churn in our SaaS market.
In 2020 and 2021, we have also invested significantly in our sales enablement and marketing productivity to increase opportunity creation.
Ruby Rusine
Social Success Marketing | Chief, Social Media Strategist
Make sure that customer service representatives can answer questions about the company's offerings. For example, if a customer is contemplating switching to a competitor, the representative should be able to explain why the other company's offering is inferior, and provide information about the ways that the company's product is better.
Patrick Dodge
Creative Side Marketing LLC | Founder
We reduce customer churn by actively seeking moments where we can be more than a partner to our clients. When one of them has something big to celebrate, we make sure we are there to amplify the moment as much as possible.
For instance, one of our clients is a small division within a big company, often overshadowed by other, more lucrative departments. One quarter, they crushed their sales, operations, and marketing goals. We produced an inspirational video that celebrated their achievements, and delivered it in time for them to show it at their next Town Hall Meeting (with the CEO present).
It was a moment where they deserved to shine, and we amped it up. We did this free of charge and never mentioned our agency anywhere in the video. Take every opportunity to make your clients into heroes. They will remember it.
Nate Tower
Perrill | Director of Marketing
Put simply, it's all about focusing on value over stuff. From a product standpoint, that means clearly demonstrating the tangible difference the client/customer receives from the product as opposed to focusing on all the cool features (many of which they don't understand or will never use).
From a service standpoint, that means showing that we are having a positive impact on their business rather than rattling off a laundry list of the things we did. At the end of the day, the stuff and the features don't mean anything to the client if you can't clearly explain the benefit they are receiving by working with you.
Rose Carges
Colibri Digital Marketing | Content Marketing Manager
In order to reduce customer churn, we approach our work with clients as a collaborative effort. Our clients are our partners and so we want to grow together. It’s important to make them feel like part of the team and not just spectators.We do more than just create strategies and implement them, we teach our clients about digital marketing and let them have control over their brand.
On top of that, we find that communicating early and often creates a strong relationship. You don't have to serve every single client need, but you do need to be in communication with clients so they feel seen, heard, and understood.
Another tactic we have used to reduce churn is radical transparency. If we make a mistake we own it and we make it good. Nothing is more important in business than integrity and solid relationships.
Elodie Mouillet
DashThis | Product Manager
Our strategy for reducing churn is to focus on:
And most importantly:
Lydia Sugarman
Venntive | CEO
I think our customers stay for a lot of different reasons that all boil down to one thing -- when they need a new tool or feature, they always find that it is already integrated into their Venntive account...at no additional charge. Venntive really is complete customer lifecycle management from the very first touch.
Zarar Ameen
CANZ Marketing | Founder & CEO
We realized that setting clear expectations and communication is the essential ingredient to keeping customers long term. You could be doing everything correct but if your communication lacks then you are at risk of loosing a client. Over communicate, always.
Karthik Subramanian
Picmaker, an Animaker product | Senior Content Manager
Our product caters to the B2C segment, so there're many individual users with varying needs.
When customers come to us with queries, we help them with FAQs and pre-recorded tutorials. But, in some instances, they may not be equipped to do all of it on their own. So, in such instances, we do a screen recording for them. We show them how to use a particular feature, and share the screen recording with them.
We make sure that we address them by their first name, and mention that this is a personalized screen recording for them. This has helped our customers stick with our product for a longer duration than we initially expected.
In other instances, we get into calls with them irrespective of whether they're free or paid. We speak to them one-on-one and solve their problem right in front of them. It could be as simple as a password reset, but it might really be bothering them.
So, it is important to assure them that we've got things under control, and we're happy to assist them. When they see that we're committed to solving their issue, they not only stick longer, they even recommend our product to their friends and family. This has been a big factor for us.
No matter how advanced technologies are, I think there is no replacement for such interpersonal and face-to-face communication. It reduces churn to a great extent, as customers feel that their issues are being sorted out.
Petra Odak
Better Proposals | CMO at Better Proposals
One strategy that really helped us with churn is doubling down on our customer support. We hired another customer support rep and managed to get our response time under 15 minutes for each customer. For a product with an international customer base, this is a great result and it helped greatly with our churn.
Many times, people churn because they can’t figure something out and if support takes too long to get in touch, they rage quit and move on to a competitor. My best advice for battling churn - be helpful and be fast and your customers will love you.
Travis Daugherty
Brandfolder | Head of Customer Experience
Remove as many manual efforts from your system admin’s plate as possible during implementation and ongoing management of our solution. Many people have jobs to do outside of standing up and owning a piece of software.
Removing “to-dos” from their day-to-day activities decreases time to launch, helps realize value sooner, and doesn't become an administrative burden by cutting into other areas of their role.
Monica Lent
Affilimate | CEO
Our absolute best strategy to reduce churn has been offering our customers free credit to their account for 1-3 months instead of canceling.
Sometimes, with monthly subscriptions, customers feel they need to use your product every single month to justify the expense. Or, they missed out on discovering or capitalizing on a key feature that makes your product sticky.
But just giving a pause in payments takes the pressure off, and lets them learn the product and get to your Aha moment with a bit more time.
Not only has this technique helped us reduce churn, but the retention rate is much higher than you would expect. Especially these days where many businesses are still facing uncertainty, it's a great way to build goodwill and take the time to invest in a relationship with your customer at a critical moment.
Inessa Kutsishaya
Influ2 | Customer Success Lead at Influ2
Outside of developing an awesome product, you also need to educate your customers on how to use it. Otherwise, they will not be able to leverage it and get all of your product's potential benefits.
When your clients are getting the most out of your product it greatly helps to reduce customer churn. That's why at Influ2 we ensure that our clients have the support that they need to get the results that they are looking for.
Customer churn is costly. You’ll lose a big chunk of your annual revenue when a customer decides they no longer want to use your products and services. Then you’ll have to invest money and time in finding a new customer, which could take months. It’s less stressful, and less expensive, to encourage your existing customers to stay with you.
So ensure you’re always proving to customers how much you value their loyalty. Whether you use one or all of our suggestions for reducing churn, listen to what your customers have to say. Find out what challenges they’re facing, then be proactive in resolving them.
