Why do customers churn?

I’ve heard a variety of answers.

“It’s complicated“ is my favorite though.

If we look at every possible reason that customers churn, there could be so many reasons that its overwhelming to think about.

In that sense it IS complicated.

So start with the feedback right?

And if you have 10 sets of feedback and they don’t seem to line up you might be inclined to think that there is nothing to learn there.

Do you know what they word “insight” means?

Clear, deep understanding.

Are we saying that there is no insight to be had?

Or just that you can’t get there?

In my experience, there is clear, deep understanding to be had about churn.

You can try to gain understanding without the work.

You can look at a few emails.

You can look at a few support tickets.

You can have a few conversations.

And write somethings down in a notebook or on your whiteboard so you can mull them over and HOPE.

Or you can dive deep.

Collect all the messages.

From all the channels.

To all the churned customers.

Gather ALL their customer journeys and map them all.

9 months later (if you are lucky enough to construct a well oiled machine that does this for you) you might be somewhere.

I’m going to insert a few questions here…

Why wasn’t this data already in a place where you could look at it?

No one saw the ROI?

No one saw that trust was eroding faster than standby seats getting taken on a Southwest flight?

I have three things to say…

Customer data pipeline.

Customer data pipeline.

Customer data pipeline.