A Useful Guide for Preventing Customer Churn
Is there anything worse than not winning a new customer? Yes, losing an existing one. It’s every salesperson’s worst nightmare. You win some, you lose some, such is life. Here’s the good news though, in many cases customer churn can be prevented. We’re going to walk you through five steps on how to do it.
What is customer churn?
First, though, let’s start at the beginning. If customer churn is a phrase you’ve never heard before, it’s simply this: the percentage of customers that stopped using your company’s products or services over a set time frame.
Here’s the formula for calculating your customer churn rate:
Customer churn rate = No. of customers you lost / No. of customers you began with x 100
So, let’s say you want to calculate your customer churn rate for the month of January. If you lost 15 customers and started with 50, your customer churn rate would be the following:
15 / 50 = 0.3
- 3 x 100 = 30%
5 steps for preventing customer churn
Now you know what customer churn is, let’s have a look at some methods to prevent it.
Outstanding customer service reduces customer churn
Your customer service can make or break your company. Deliver poor customer service and you can say goodbye to both your customers and your reputation.
Delivering excellent customer service will make your customers feel heard and that’s going to guarantee their respect. Don’t wait around for them to contact you either, you should reach out to your customers now and then to offer some support, they’ll appreciate that you took the time to contact them.
Value beyond purchase
On top of outstanding customer service, you should also prove to your customers that your company can offer them more than just the one product or service they needed. If you can continue to deliver valuable resources they are more likely to continue being a customer. Examples you can send to them include:
- Newsletters
- Relevant blog posts
- Info on upcoming events
Personalised customer experiences
Customers like to feel special. That’s why it’s crucial that all of the interactions you have with them are personalised. You might not be able to hand-write every email you send, but you could segment your email lists into certain demographics and send tailored emails with relevant content to each of the different groups.
Analyse churned customers
Struggling to figure out why you’re losing customers? It’s simple, just ask them. Consider sending out surveys to churned customers and find out what turned them off, and what you can do better in future.
The data you collect will be instrumental in drawing helpful conclusions about the changes you need to make, then you can get on with implementing these changes and start reducing your churn rate.
Study your strongest customer relationships
As well as analysing those churned customers, it will also be beneficial to decipher the things your organisation is good at. Knowing what is keeping your customers from churning means you can, well, keep on doing it. You can then focus on your positive attributes and keep improving them, making them more seamless and effective.
Don’t let customer churn get you down. It’s a fact of life that all salespeople must face. Instead of allowing it to get the better of you, follow these 5 steps so you can minimise your customer churn rate and get back to doing what you love – selling!
As Always, Good Luck!
