What are the best ways to get ahead of potential churn, to see the signs and stop it from happening?

There are many signals of potential churn; at scale, that's the inherent problem with data points; there are so many. Nothing replaces speaking to your customers regularly and digging into what's happening in their environment. Yet as a guide, you could look at the signals/question below, put a score against each and create a simple weighted risk or engagement score against each customer to identify where you need to focus, i.e. healthy vs at risk. There are CS tools out there to optimise this, but it can be done in-house manually without investing in a tool if you want to quickly get something off the ground.

• Has there been a successful onboarding?

• Has a ticket been submitted in the last x amount of days?

• Is the customer expanding?

• Are they using specific features?

• Has there been a portal login during the last month?

• Was there QBR or value-driven engagement held in the previous three months?

• Is there an upcoming meeting scheduled with the customer?

• Has the champion changed in the last six months?

• Has the customer confirmed (verbally or in writing) that they are receiving value from their investment?

The first step to knowing if a client is at risk of churning is to identify the potential warning signs:

• Lack of Engagement
• Client Turnover
• Service/Support Issues
• Economic Climate
• Poor Performance
• Low CSAT/NPS Scores

Once you understand what to look for you can better assess risk within any given account and create an action plan to get things back on track.

I've found the most impactful element to avoiding churn from the onset is to create strong executive relationships with clients. This allows for a feedback loop to prevent frustrations and address issues quickly.

There are some great articles on churn out there so I am going to share a few of my favourites.

• From Markus Rentsch on my favourite gurus on Customer Success; https://remark-able.at/reduce-churn-more-effectively-and-efficiently/

• From Greg Daines one of the industry experts on churn; https://www.churnrx.com/copy-of-latest-research

Customer Churn primarily because of poor on boarding, do not achieve their desired outcomes, too long and / or too difficult to obtain value and a low level of engagement. It is important that upfront you had the right customer profile and sales ensured the correct product fit to match the customers business objectives.

1. Define and agree on success metrics up front. Understand the customers value drivers. Have a shared Customer Success plan in place. A customer success plan can help identify the key milestones and metrics for success, as well as the steps needed to achieve those milestones. CSMs can work with customers to develop and execute on these plans, which can help ensure that the customer is achieving their goals and receiving the value they expect.

2. Do a great on boarding and ramp up quickly. Accelerate time to first value. Demonstrate value early and often.

3. Monitor customer behaviour: CSMs can track customer usage, engagement, and support tickets to identify any signs of disengagement or dissatisfaction.

4. Analyse customer data: Customer data can provide valuable insights into customer behaviour and trends. CSMs can use data analytics tools to identify patterns and trends in customer usage, engagement, and support requests, which can help identify potential issues early on.

5. Monitor product usage and feature adoption. Ideally your products are designed for customer success and have inbuilt telemetry.

6. Be engaged. Conduct regular check-ins with customers can help identify any issues early on and address them before they escalate. CSMs can use these check-ins to understand the customer's goals, challenges, and pain points, and identify ways to help them achieve success.

7. Provide proactive support: Proactive support can help prevent issues from arising in the first place. CSMs can provide educational resources, best practices, and proactive recommendations to help customers obtain the most out of their product or service.