Let\u2019s talk about how.<\/p>\n
(Need a refresher on customer churn rate? Check out our Actionable Metric guide<\/a>. Curious how to measure it for your business? Read how we break it down for B2B vs B2C<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Red flags. Signs that a customer is disengaging. If you monitor your customers\u2019 activity in your app and interactions with your team, there are quite a few indicators that they might be drifting away from your product.<\/p>\n There are a couple of things that may happen on your customer\u2019s end, in-house, which you could note, too.<\/p>\n (These are hard to track at scale, but could be worth it for high-value accounts.)<\/p>\n You can manage churn prediction on your own, if you\u2019d like.<\/p>\n Otherwise, there are a host of tools that will do this for you. Many of them are designed to help you predict churn and will run reports that make customer monitoring easy.<\/p>\n To predict churn is to prevent it, right? It\u2019s all about proactivity. Let’s look at ways you can address each red flag as soon as you see it \u2014 which might actually be before the customer even thinks of cancelling.<\/p>\n Set up an automated email campaign to get the customer\u2019s attention and bring them back around. If that doesn\u2019t work, a customer success agent could check in with them over the phone.<\/p>\n Drip emails throughout the onboarding process are always a good idea. If you have a campaign in place but customers are still falling off midway, set up a second layer of automate emails. Tailor these to where the customer fell off the onboarding path. Remind the customer of the major benefits of your product and their potential when using it.<\/p>\n Closely tied to the drip emails during onboarding, this string of emails serves as ongoing customer education. Ideally the customer would receive emails only about the features that they\u2019ve neglected.<\/p>\n If a customer who actively contacted support suddenly goes silent, it makes you wonder whether they stopped seeing the point in seeking help or answers. Here it\u2019s a good idea to send a quick email or make a quick phone call, just to check in and make sure everything is going well.<\/p>\n This is a sensitive subject, and one you should approach with care. Payment problems could indicate financial trouble, or just an expired\/cancelled credit card. If it\u2019s the latter, you should set up a series of dunning emails, designed to remind the customer to update their billing information.<\/p>\n Personal conversation, all the way. The customer is paying you money, and they\u2019re unhappy. Hear them out \u2014 they will feel better, and you will have learned a lot about them as a consumer and also about your product.<\/p>\n Have a conversation with the new point-of-contact. Get to know them and their objectives in their new role. Of course they\u2019ll know your aim is to resell your product and keep them as a customer, but it doesn\u2019t need to be a sales call. Make the heart of the conversation about understanding their needs \u2014 and then demonstrate how your product could help.<\/p>\n A young company pivots; a customer is opening to new market segments; they get a new round of funding and plan to grow like crazy: All of these scenarios could lead to a shift in their business needs, which could be a shift away from your product. Keep your eye out for other red flags, too, and touch base with the customer.<\/p>\n Address a\u00a0red flag as soon as you see it \u2014 which might actually be before the customer even thinks of cancelling.<\/p>\n Tweet this quote<\/a>\n <\/blockquote>\n Some churn might be a larger pattern in your customers\u2019 lifecycles. Segmenting your customers into cohorts may reveal underlying issues that require more systemic solutions, more fundamental changes.<\/p>\n A big portion of customers always cancels in their fourth month? Retention not doing so hot with a particular vertical?<\/em> Now you know there are some kinks in your product (or in how it\u2019s sold, or in how these particular customers use it) \u2014 and while you work on smoothing those kinks internally, you can focus customer success on these at-risk cohorts to preempt any cancellations.<\/p>\n Ultimately, predicting and preventing churn comes down to understanding people\u2019s behavior. What is the behavior of your happy, long-term customers? What do they have in common? Pay attention to whatever doesn\u2019t<\/em> fit that mold, to whomever behaves differently. Figure out ways to help them find more success with your product individually, or implement sustainable and scalable solutions on your end that can address a broad segment.<\/p>\n Through being so proactive with at-risk accounts, you\u2019ll understand more innately your customers\u2019 reasons for churn. You\u2019ll learn how to prevent these reasons. You\u2019ll build this prevention into the product itself, or make it a normal part of your customer success workflow. Your product will be better, and your team will be smarter; both will be more responsive to your customers\u2019 needs. And so your customers will be more satisfied, and they\u2019ll stay on board.\u00a0And you will all… live\u2026 happily ever after.<\/p>\n Heartache averted.<\/p>\n NEW on @ChartMogul<\/a>: To predict churn is to prevent it \u2014 here\u2019s how. https:\/\/t.co\/mGrcIlJTql<\/a> #SaaS<\/a> #Churn<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/18CKg3RAz3<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 ChartMogul (@ChartMogul) April 5, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhat are you looking for?<\/h1>\n
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How can you keep track of the red flags?<\/h1>\n
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![\"Totango](\"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Screen-Shot-2016-04-05-at-13.04.15-1024x509.png\")
<\/a>What exactly can you do when a red flag is raised?<\/h1>\n
A customer isn\u2019t logging in, or is logging in less frequently.<\/h3>\n
A customer hasn\u2019t completed onboarding.<\/h3>\n
A customer isn\u2019t using key features.<\/h3>\n
A customer stops contacting Support.<\/h3>\n
A customer has routine payment problems (consecutive late payments or service suspensions).<\/h3>\n
A customer recently submitted an NPS of 6 or lower.<\/h3>\n
A customer\u2019s point-of-contact changes.<\/h3>\n
Business or economic changes within the customer<\/h3>\n
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Pay attention to what\u2019s beneath the red flags, too.<\/h1>\n
Final word<\/h1>\n
Share and follow!<\/h1>\n
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