Lowering churn is a top priority for many businesses regardless of their industry. Churn is the last thing you want among many key performance indicators (KPI). A higher churn rate means more customers drop off from your services.
With that said, how do you reduce customer churn rate? How do you generate new demand for your products and services?
Here are 10 things to consider that can help your business.
1. Connect With Your Best Customers
Businesses that want to reduce churn will identify a pool of customers most likely to cancel and focus on keeping them. While this is a reasonable effort, it’s best to understand that you can’t keep everyone. It may even be detrimental for you to spend too much on all your customers trying to churn.
The best move is not to pursue everyone but instead find your best customers who are close to churning and focus on remarketing to them. As you’re trying to understand the relationship between sales and customer success, you’ll notice that keeping your best customers is the only way to profit.
Why?
While keeping customer retention high is admirable, the question stands: are they profitable? Retention also means spending on ways to keep your customer base happy. It’s better to spend your retention money on the biggest spenders on the verge of dropping your products. The goal is to maximize profits every time.
2. Analyze How Churn Occurs
It’s best to see how and why churn occurs in your business. Find out why your customers are leaving and resolve it as soon as possible. There are several ways to do this, depending on the nature of your business.
The best way to find out potential reasons for churn is to talk to your customers directly. For small businesses, you can call customers and ask them about their reason for leaving. Most customers are willing to inform you about their reason for doing so.
This is possible for businesses with an extensive customer base with a consistent satisfaction survey. For example, exit surveys are a fantastic way to see what bothers your customers. Utilize phone, email, live chat, social media, and more and seek their feedback. This information can help in improving your process.
3. Win Them Back By Handling Objections During Cancellation
Once you’ve identified potential reasons for churn, it’s time to address them. When dealing with customers who want to cancel, you need to know how to handle their objections. This will help in winning them back on the spot.
For example, let’s say that a customer is dropping your products because they feel you’re overpricing them. You’ll need to make them understand that you’re worth every penny in this situation. You can show them that other customers are happy with the price. Work with them to figure out a more affordable plan.
Determine their reasons for dissatisfaction, then respond with a customized offer. For example, a more extended trial period or a discount might be an option.
4. Focus on Loyalty Programs
As mentioned, the best way is to retain your best customers. One way is to keep them in mind. That’s what loyalty programs do. It’s a win-win situation: they build customer loyalty, and you also make profitability.
Loyalty programs work by creating a connection between your business and your customers. You give your customers incentives for coming to you. The incentives might be a discount, free services, free products, or points. Clients can then use the points to get more services or products.
Sign Up for our Newsletter
And Get a FREE Benchmark Analysis Template
5. Engage Your Customers
Besides loyalty, other key performance indicators that can help improve customer retention include engagement. There are many ways of engaging your customers. This includes providing consistent and relevant information.
For example, if you’re running a loyalty program, you’ll need to provide regular details. This includes the date when rewards expire, how to get them, and more information. As they’re interested, they’ll stay tuned in.
6. Improve Your UX
UX (user experience) is another critical factor in customer retention. For example, if you’re running a loyalty program, you’ll need to know what customers need. A loyalty program is only good if customers use it.
If you’re trying to understand why customers are leaving, you’ll need to survey them. Ask relevant questions, then listen. This will help you understand their pain points. If you can solve their pain points, you’ll be able to retain them and keep your customers happy.
Give your channels a UX check too. This should help you keep your process effective. For example, knowing the impact of SaaS UX on churn rate can help you optimize the entire sales funnel.
7. Build An Onboarding Roadmap For New Customers
If you’re trying to retain new customers, you’ll need to build an onboarding roadmap. This is a process where you help customers understand your products and services from the start. An onboarding roadmap can assist customers in maximizing the value of your offerings.
For example, if you’re a B2B company, it’s best to do research. Understand the needs of your potential and existing customers. Learn what problems they need to solve. Empower customers to resolve their issues through what you provide for them.
Find out the barriers they’re facing. Then, create an onboarding roadmap that outlines the steps needed to succeed from when they decide to purchase to when they use your products.
You need to monitor and iterate the onboarding process continually. Keep an eye out for issues along the way and be ready to help your customers feel empowered to succeed.
8. Send Product Updates and New Features
Another critical factor in customer retention is product updates and new features. For example, if you’re a SaaS company, you’ll need to update your customers on new features. This lets you show that you’re adding value to your product without the necessary cost from their side.
This lets your customers know that you value them. It also shows that you’re willing to provide more features (and solutions) and shows customers that you’re ready to go the extra mile.
9. Keep Customer Service Stellar
Customer service can make or break your brand. As a business, you’re always trying to grow. While growth is good, you can’t sacrifice quality. Customer service needs to be stellar, resolving client pain points and advocating customer concerns.
It’s essential to understand how you can deliver exceptional customer service. You can improve customer engagement and foster long-term relationships by focusing on customer satisfaction and retention rates.
By communicating regularly through product-related content, blogs, newsletters, videos, etc., you can reinforce what the customer can expect from your product or service. Another option is to host webinars or Q&As or share information on social media.
10. Stay Competitive
When it comes to retaining customers, keeping your business competitive can make or break your business. You need to stay ready to compete at all times to prevent other companies from overtaking your products and services.
Keep in mind that your competitors are also gunning for your customers, so you need to keep everything fresh. Focus on the future – what’s next, trending, and what tech you can use to optimize your operations.
Ensure that you connect with your audience on your marketing channels. Lack of customer response can prevent you from improving your process and retention.
The Bottom Line
When keeping your churn rate low, you need to consider several factors. You need to understand your customers and their pain points. This can help you address them and build lasting relationships. You also need to keep your business competitive at all times.
Ultimately, it’s all about generating new demand for your services and products. While doing so, always work on improving customer experience. This can help your business stay relevant and prevent customers from leaving your service.
Bash Sarmiento
Writer and Educator
Bash Sarmiento is a writer and an educator from Manila. He writes laconic pieces in the education, lifestyle, and health realms. His academic background and extensive experience in teaching, textbook evaluation, business management, and traveling are translated in his works.
The information and views set out in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of Magnimetrics. Neither Magnimetrics nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained herein. The information in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be treated as professional advice. Magnimetrics and the author of this publication accept no responsibility for any damages or losses sustained as a result of using the information presented in the publication. Some of the content shared above may have been written with the assistance of generative AI. We ask the author(s) to review, fact-check, and correct any generated text. Authors submitting content on Magnimetrics retain their copyright over said content and are responsible for obtaining appropriate licenses for using any copyrighted materials.
