Churn Reduction

Where do you start if you are responsible for churn reduction?

First, define a consistent set of metrics by which you are able to measure customer churn. This area is more complicated than it should be as many public companies use the most aggressive calculation of customer retention.

The best place to start is by developing a churn reduction scorecard that captures elements your management team believes are indicative of customer health and probability to renew or upsell. Over time, factors on this scorecard can be derived through data science, but near-term, intuition is a great place to start.

The attributes of a healthy customer might include:

• Key feature usage: Is your customer using key / differentiated features or services?

• Training: Has your customer purchased training, been trained and/or are they adept at your product?

• Support: Is your customer logging high volumes of issues, and having a positive experience with your Support organization?

• NPS: Is your customer providing positive feedback on your Net Promoter surveys?

• Billing: Is your customer paying invoices in a timely fashion?

• Reference: Is your customer acting as a reference, both privately and publicly?

You need to understand these attributes before delving into strategies for churn reduction.

And that’s where Gainsight excels. It’s a platform that is focused entirely on customer retention and churn reduction.