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This week: Article: 5 Pro Tips for Rapidly Driving Customer Results New Podcast: Greg Daines on Video Voyagers: Edge of AI Upcoming Appearance: Why Happy Customers Don't Stay Quote of the Week: Behavior change is the key... 5 Pro Tips for Rapidly Driving Customer Results [23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #14 Track Key Customer Behaviors] The key to customer success is CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR CHANGE because... 👉 Customers succeed when they change their behavior in ways that lead to results. 👈 ❗️But tracking customer behavior is NOT the same thing as tracking customer adoption. Obviously, customers need to start using your product, but that's not ALL that they need to do to win! This becomes obvious when you study your most successful customers. ✅ There are ALWAYS just a few key customer actions that are necessary to get to first results. Your successful customers did them, and your failed customers didn't. These key customer behaviors are the key to crushing churn. Here are my 5 Pro Tips for building the ultimate customer success process. → 🎯 Pro Tip #1: STUDY YOUR MOST SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMERS 🔬 What did your best customers do right at the beginning to win (first, second, third)? 🔬 How did they change their process to take advantage of your product? 🔬 Who did they involve in making the key changes? 🎯 Pro Tip #2: WRITE DOWN THE KEY INITIAL PROCESSES The list should be short because there are only a small number of essential INITIAL actions. Remember this is NOT a list of ALL the great things your best customers do. It's a list of ONLY actions necessary to get to FIRST RESULTS, and that means there are only a few key things. 📈 Data consistently shows that customers who get to a first measurable result - NO MATTER HOW SMALL - subsequently retain at a very high rate. 🎯 Pro Tip #3: TEACH CUSTOMERS HOW TO CHANGE Redesign your onboarding process to focus entirely on the key behaviors. Don't waste precious customer time and attention on anything else. Reduce or eliminate customer involvement in implementation, and direct their attention to making the key behavior changes. 🎯 Pro Tip #4: TRACK EACH CUSTOMER'S BEHAVIOR CHANGES Record the date of each key behavior achievement. It may sound tedious, but this is one of the MOST EFFECTIVE things you can do to ensure customers succeed! The fact that the list is short (see Pro Tip 2) makes this achievable. 🎯 Pro Tip #5: INTERVENE WHEN CUSTOMERS DON'T CHANGE Create simple reports that show which customers have not made key changes in a reasonable time, and reach out QUICKLY to help them get back on track. Time is not our friend because customers are easily discouraged and distracted. Most customers fail early because they never make it to that first materialization of measured results. This is the essence of the Customer Behavior Change Playbook that I help my clients implement. And it works astonishingly well! DM me if you'd like to learn more about this playbook and how to implement it to radically improve customer results. 🙂 DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT NOW: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 New Podcast: Greg Daines on Video Voyagers: Edge of AI I recently joined the new Video Voyagers - Edge of AI podcast this week to talk about the cutting-edge of customers success at the nexus of artificial intelligence. It was a fantastic exploration of topics that will certainly revolutionize business and customers success! Check it out now: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/video-voyagers-edge-of-ai/id1700953868?ign-itscg=30200&ign-itsct=podcast_box_link UPCOMING APPEARANCE: I am excited to be featured on the first of a new 6-part series being published by the terrific folks at Brainstorm Inc. on Oct 4, 2023 at 11:30 ET. Click below to learn more and register. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: The key to producing customer results is changing customer behavior.

This week: Article: QBRs Don't Work! And what to do instead Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #10 Identify Every Customer's Key Results Quote of the Week: Focusing on competitors leads to mediocrity... QBRs DON'T WORK! We all know it. Here's why they are ineffective and what to do instead → People frequently ask me how they can make their QBRs effective. They know they aren't working, but they don't know why. Perhaps the clearest indicator that QBRs are a waste of time is that... ❗️It's extremely difficult to get the key business leader(s) to attend❗️ BUT, think about it from the customer's perspective: ⦿ According to a recent OKTA study, enterprises license an average of 187 software applications! Even if your key business leader only uses a small portion of those, it still means they are getting potentially dozens QBR invitations! That's not going to work. ⦿ Even if they are unusually interested in your QBR, they have to set aside an hour in their busy schedule, which can be difficult to find. ⦿ And even when they DO attend, they are presented with a lot of information that is not specifically for THEM! Most of it is really for the people below them who run the day-to-day. ⦿ But the worst part is how much of the QBR presentation isn't about the CUSTOMER at all! Do you really imagine your key business leader is eager to spend their precious time hearing about your company's progress or product roadmap? 📈 I spoke to a CS leader recently who analyzed their QBR success rate and found that not only are they getting very low customer interest in QBRs, but that QBRs are actually associated with HIGHER CHURN! ✅ WHAT'S THE SOLUTION? If you want to engage key business leaders, you have to: ⓵ Offer to show them what they are most interested in: their MEASURED RESULTS! ⓶ Tell them you will share tips on how they can IMPROVE their results. ⓷ Promise to take very little of their TIME. ► That's all. Nothing else. ⓸ Finally, back up your promises by sending them the deck in advance, which should have no more than 2-3 slides. This is what I call an EXECUTIVE BUSINESS REVIEW (EBR), and it's astonishingly effective at re-engaging business leaders. ❗️In fact, why not follow this practice right from the beginning to never lose their engagement in the first place? But it also has a powerful impact on aligning customers to create behavior change, drive better results, and ultimately lead to consistent customer expansion! This does not need to replace your standing meetings with your day-to-day contacts for which some version of a QBR may be useful. The EBR exists to achieve the most important objective: maintaining engagement and alignment with the key decision-maker(s)! Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX 23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #10 How to Identify Every Customer's Key Results; plus A SURPRISING FACT, and A HUGE UNEXPECTED BENEFIT Our research consistently shows that, by far, the strongest predictor of long-term customer retention is whether the customer achieved measurable results. 📈 Customers with measurable results stay six times longer on average than customers who don't measure their results! 📈 Therefore the most foundational solution to churn starts with identifying every customer's results. HOWEVER... A common reaction I get to this from CS reps and leaders is, 💬 "But many of my customers don't have good results!" 😲 HERE'S THE SURPRISING FACT → Our research reveals that even when you show your customer BAD results, they actually stay more than TWICE AS LONG! WHY? ► Remember that customers stay to get results. If you don't measure their results, they have no reason to stick around to see if results ever arrive. ► When you show them measured results - even if they are BAD - they can see a way forward and are motivated to start improving. BUT UNFORTUNATELY... 👉 The biggest reason most customers will never see measured results is that WE DON'T IDENTIFY WHAT THEY ARE in the first place! 👈 ✅ HERE'S HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM: ⓵ Identify and capture each customer's measurable business results during the sale. If not in the sale, then right at the start - in the kickoff. ⓶ Hand off the key results to Customer Success to make them the central element of the customer process. ⓷ Systematically measure and present results regularly to customers. Do this INSTEAD of the traditional QBR (which doesn't work)! 🤗 HERE'S THE HUGE UNEXPECTED BENEFIT → After you've done this with a bunch of customers, you'll inevitably start to see a pattern. The same results will start to show up repeatedly, with just a few dominating. And one result will invariably rise to the top as the most common and important result for your customers. This is extremely valuable insight that you can leverage to build alignment with every other team in your company: ⦿ MARKETING can leverage this info to significantly improve the messaging that attracts your best 'bullseye' customers. ⦿ SALES can use it to help customers more quickly identify which results they care about most and motivate them to purchase. ⦿ ONBOARDING can use it to build the most effective pathways to driving customers' first results. ⦿ PRODUCT can use it to evaluate and design the product road map to produce more of the kinds of results your customers actually stay for. ⦿ SUPPORT can leverage it to ensure they are helping customers achieve results rather than just solve isolated issues. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Focusing on your competitors' results leads to mediocrity. Focusing on your customers' results leads to loyalty.

In this episode of Video Voyagers, Greg Daines, CEO of ChurnRX, also known as the "Churn Doctor," joins host Audrey Lecker to explore the power of AI in predicting churn and retention, enhancing customer experience, and its impact on customer behavior change.

This week: Article: What does it mean to "Buy" churn? Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #9 Sell More Paid Services Quote of the Week: Endless reasons why customers fail but... What does it mean to "BUY CHURN"? I often say, "We buy more churn than we make." Here's what "buying" churn means to me, and what to do about it → 👉 The way we sell is a huge factor in customer churn. 👈 It all comes down to results → THE 3 LAWS OF CUSTOMER RETENTION: ⓵ Customers stay to get results. ⓶ Customers get results because they change their behavior. ⓷ Customers change their behavior because they know why and how to change. So, what does this have to do with selling? Here's what happens... 🤑 Lazy selling leads to lazy customers. 🥱 Lazy customers don't change their behavior. 😧 No change means they don't get results. 😵 When customers don't get results, they leave. Ok, so what is "Lazy Selling"? Here is my quick starting list, but I'm sure you can think of more: • Relying on DISCOUNTING to close deals • Allowing customers to have unrealistic EXPECTATIONS • Giving away onboarding or expert services for FREE • Not identifying and documenting the customer's key RESULTS • Not COMMITTING customers to make the essential changes • Selling to BAD-FIT customers to hit quota • Not ENGAGING post-sale to ensure customers win 🙋🏽‍♀️ What else have you seen? What selling practices lead to churn? 🙋🏼‍♂️ Conversely, what have you seen sales do that sets up customers for success? HOW DO YOU SOLVE LAZY SELLING? Engaging productively with sales to inform their practices for driving customer results is essential. Customer Success is in the driver's seat on this one. Here's the simple method I use to help my clients engage successfully with sales: ✅ Provide sales with a clear and simple framework of the key results new customers should focus on, and how the most successful customers achieve them. THE CUSTOMER RESULTS FRAMEWORK: 1️⃣ Take the time to study your successful customers and identify the most important RESULTS that new customers should focus on. Ideally, choose just one or two (or at most 3) key results. Simplicity is powerful! 2️⃣ For each result, indicate how the customer will MEASURE the results. Identify the key result metric; if it can't be measured, identify the proxy indicator that will prove it's working. 3️⃣ List all the SOLUTION elements that are essential for good results. Identify which products and services they will need to ensure they achieve their results. 4️⃣ Finally, clearly list what key BEHAVIORS the customer will need to change to win. This is the most important part! Sharing this with prospects demonstrates that we know how to make them successful and prepares them to engage correctly. It's amazing how effectively these simple steps inform the sales process and align with customer success! I've guided many clients through this process, and the results are astonishing. Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX 4 REASONS WHY SELLING PAID SERVICES DRIVES CUSTOMER RETENTION → 23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #9 Sell More Paid Services 📈 Our customer churn research consistently shows that customers who purchase paid services alongside their subscriptions get better results and stay significantly longer. Also, companies that offer paid services have higher retention rates. Here are the four reasons that paid lead to better results and longer customer retention: ⓵ Buying paid services signals that the customer has a higher degree of commitment and engagement to start with. These are more serious customers. ⓶ The act of selling paid services improves the quality of the sales process because it forces reps to make a more compelling RESULTS case to justify the investment. ⓷ Selling paid services inevitably leads to teaching prospects about the BEHAVIORS that are essential to achieve good results. This prepares customers to engage with the company correctly and win. ⓸ MOST IMPORTANTLY, paid services almost always directly assist customers to get results more effectively. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: There are endless reasons why customers fail, but only a few reasons why they succeed.

This week: 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #23 Cross-Sell Customers Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Churn Cheats #9: Blaming Others for Churn Quote of the Week: The only reasons to buy your product... 23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #3 Stop Using Deep Discounts 📈 Our research shows that customers who start with deep discounts (25% or more) have significantly shorter average lifespans. WHY → ⓵ Discounts lead to higher churn because how we sell impacts how customers behave. The problem is that customers with discounts tend to become low-effort customers. 😴 When customers don't try hard to implement your solution, they don't get good results. 👉 LAZY SELLING PRODUCES LAZY CUSTOMERS. 👈 ⓶ Relying on deep discounts to close deals also brings in many more BAD-FIT customers. ⓷ Discounting devalues your offering in the eyes of the customer. They don't get good results if they don't take it seriously. Discounting your services is even worse than discounting your product, as it devalues your valuable expertise. Customers who don't take your advice seriously don't get good results. Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX Churn Cheats #10: "Zero Churn" A CEO recently asked me: "Greg, how can we get to zero churn?" My answer: "That's simple; stop selling your product!" The notion that churn can be completely eliminated is not a serious idea. I can explain why very simply... 👉 THERE WILL ALWAYS BE CHURN BECAUSE WE MAKE BETS ON CUSTOMERS. 👈 If we make smart bets by selling to the right customers and follow that by delivering good results, churn will be low, and growth will be effortless. That's the power of 📈 RESULTS LED GROWTH! 📈 The fundamental principles are simple: 💡 Customers stay to get results. 💡 Churn matters because it can make it difficult or impossible to grow. 💡 Achieving "ZERO CHURN" also makes it impossible to grow. 💡 The right objective is to keep churn at a level that optimizes growth. ► "Zero Churn" is an idiotic buzzword unworthy of use in real business. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Lazy selling produces lazy customers.

This week: 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #23 Cross-Sell Customers Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Churn Cheats #9: Blaming Others for Churn Quote of the Week: The only reasons to buy your product... 23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #23 CROSS-SELL CUSTOMERS 📈 The data shows that customers who purchase new products beyond their initial solution stay much longer (see below). WHY? 👉 Cross-selling is a key driver of long-term retention because it leads to customers achieving new results. 👈 And remember the first rule of customer retention is: CUSTOMERS STAY TO GET RESULTS. This is different from the impact of up-selling, which also increases customer retention, because → 📶 Up-selling drives MORE results for customers, whereas 🆕 Cross-selling enables customers to achieve NEW kinds of results. THE LESSON IS CLEAR: ⓵ Do not build your SaaS business around an "ALL-INCLUSIVE" model. The best approach is to offer solutions that contain everything necessary to drive significant measurable results. ⓶ Offer other functionality that drives different results as separate cross-sell options for later. ⓷ Ensure your customer retention process involves leading customers from the measured results they are achieving to the new kinds of results they could achieve with your other products. Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX Churn Cheats #9: Blaming Others for Churn This may be the most pernicious churn cheat of them all. You've seen it, and - be honest - maybe you've even done it yourself! I can certainly admit that I've been guilty of this. The temptation to blame is almost irresistible. The reason it's so tempting is because 👉 IT'S TRUE! 🧑🏻‍💼 BLAMING SALES: Everyone knows that marketing and sales cause churn. Bad-fit customers are one of the biggest overall contributors to churn, and customers with wrong expectations are not far behind. 🤖 BLAMING THE PRODUCT: It's obvious that the product itself causes churn. No product is perfect, and you don't have to look far to see customers inevitably stubbing their toes on the product's sharp edges or falling through its sometimes gaping holes. 🤷🏻 BLAMING THE CUSTOMER: You're living in denial if you can't admit that many customers' failure is their own fault. Many customers simply do not put in the effort to get good results or refuse to follow our expert advice and guidance. ❓SO IF THEY'RE ALL TO BLAME, THEN WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT? The problem with blame is that these factors are ALWAYS true. They are the condition in which we do our work. They are the reason customer success exists! You can't name a company where these are not happening. I'll wait... THE LESSON IS CLEAR: ✅ NEVER BLAME ANYONE ELSE FOR CHURN. Blame makes you weak. Taking responsibility increases your power exponentially. ✅ Build your customer success practice on the expectation that these factors will always be at play. ✅ Focus continually on finding leverage anywhere you can to improve your customers' chances for success. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: The only valid reasons to buy your product are those which are also compelling reasons to stay.

This week: 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #11 Schedule the Kickoff Before Closing Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Churn Cheats #8: Hiding Churn with Net Retention (NRR) Quote of the Week: You Can't Expand a Customer... 23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #11 Schedule the Kickoff Before Closing 🚩Time is CRITICAL to customer success. 📈 Our benchmark data shows that customers who get started within the first few days of closing have significantly higher retention. I've found that the key to starting quickly is to: 👉 Schedule the kickoff with the customer BEFORE closing when they are most motivated. 👈 Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX Churn Cheats #8: Hiding Churn with Net Retention (NRR) Net Retention (NRR) is a vital financial metric. But it is NOT a valid customer churn metric because it HIDES CHURN!🫣 WHY? There are two reasons: ⓵ It prevents us from seeing how much actual churn (gross churn) occurred by including expansion revenue. While this is useful for financial management, it's terrible for churn management because it hides how much actual churn occurred. ⓶ NRR is also distorted by the reality that high-value customers churn less often than low-value customers. This is a problem with all dollar-based churn metrics which I've discussed previously. The consequences of this are significant → ⚠️ Whenever we can't see how much actual churn we are experiencing, we weaken the power of churn to serve as a guide for improvement. As I like to say: CHURN IS THE TRUTH! 📶 It's the purest signal of WHAT and WHO we are really for! When we blend it with expansion, we lose the power and clarity of the signal. We don't hear the TRUTH as clearly, which impacts our ability to fix what doesn't work and improve the results our best customers actually value us for. Expansion is the *most important* ultimate driver of growth in recurring revenue businesses. BUT REMEMBER ► 👉 You can't expand an account you no longer have. 👈 That's why gross account retention is such a vital early predictor of long-term growth. The Lesson is Clear: ✅ In addition to NET and Dollar-based churn or retention metrics, make sure you also regularly measure and report GROSS Account Churn and Retention. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: You can't expand a customer you no longer have.

This week: 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #15 Focus on Unengaged Customers Download the Report: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Quote of the Week: Is Churn a Problem or a Solution? 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: # 5 Stop Underselling Quote of the Week: Customer Bonding happens when... 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #15 FOCUS ON UNENGAGED CUSTOMERS! A widespread customer success mistake is to focus on customers who are unhappy and who are having "negative" experiences. 📈 But the data show customers with negative experiences stay much LONGER than customers who haven't had negative experiences! The reason is simple → 👉 Negative experiences are a consequence of engaging with your solution. Customers who are not actively engaged will not get results and will ultimately churn. 👈 THE LESSON IS CLEAR... ✅ If you want to solve churn, focus your effort on UNENGAGED customers. ✅ Trouble tickets are a POSITIVE signal that a customer is on the right track. ✅ Focus on getting customers to RESULTS rather than "satisfaction". - Measure & Show Customer Results 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX QUOTE OF THE WEEK: You don't solve churn by thinking of it as a problem, but by solving the customer's problem for which churn is the solution. 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #5 - Stop Underselling To close a deal, it can be tempting to reduce the proposed solution to fit within the prospect's budget. The logic is that when the customer sees results, they'll expand. 🛬 "LAND & EXPAND" right? But there's a HUGE problem with this that inevitably shows up later - as CHURN! It's based on this simple reality: 👉 Customers will fail if they do not have everything they need to get good results. 👈 This is why it is essential to design the RIGHT solution for each customer. But you can't know what is the right solution until you have clearly defined the customer's results. Because what solution they need is determined by what results they are expecting. 📈 Our research reveals that customers who are undersold and those who are oversold both have shorter average lifespans than customers who sign up for the appropriate solution for their objectives. THE LESSON IS CLEAR: ✅ Sell customers their right "total solution" or be prepared for inevitable churn. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Customer bonding happens when customers can no longer visualize their success without you.

This week: 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #18 Measure & Show Customer Results Download the Report: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Churn Cheat #7: "Unavoidable" Churn Quote of the Week: Customers don't want your product... 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #18 - Measure & Show Customer Results The most important thing you can do to engage customers and keep their attention is to track and review their measurable results. 👉 Results are the most important predictor of retention because they are the primary reason customers stay. 👈 🏢 CLIENT STORY: One of my client companies has a standard 38-slide QBR deck which CSMs are required to use for every enterprise account. The problem is that very few of their customers ever participate in these QBRs. And it's no wonder. Like virtually every QBR I've ever seen, they are extremely tedious because they focus on the VENDOR rather than the CUSTOMER. So I convinced them to allow one of their CSMs to try a radical experiment: Replace the standard deck with just THREE slides that cover only ONE topic: the customer's measurable results. Instead of preparing the standard QBR decks, the CSM spent her time researching and quantifying her customers' results and emailed them. THE RESPONSE WAS ASTONISHING! 7 of 10 customers emailed back almost immediately, eager to learn more. Within a week, all ten customers agreed to meet with her, excited to discuss their results and learn what they could do to improve them! The Lesson Is Clear: ⦿ QBRs are a waste of the customer's time, so they're also a waste of your time. ⦿ The most engaging thing you can do is show customers their measurable results. ⦿ This is also the key to opening customers to your expert advice. 23 Ways To Reduce Churn in 2023 Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX CHURN CHEAT #7: "Unavoidable" Churn This is a sleight of hand trick to manipulate customer churn rates by writing off some customer churn as "unavoidable." This cheat works because it's undeniable that we do not have absolute control over customer churn. The classic example people always use is customers going out of business. But some big RED FLAGS prove this is false framing... 🚩⓵ First, the reality is that virtually ALL customer churn is ultimately outside our control to a significant degree. Customer Success was created entirely to increase our leverage against customer churn. Nobody seriously believes we can ever achieve total control over churn! So where do we draw the line on how much "control" makes churn "avoidable" vs. "unavoidable?" There's no clear dividing line. But surely, a customer that goes out of business is unavoidable by any standard! Right? Actually, NO, and this raises the second red flag... 🚩⓶ If your solution is for businesses, it exists to make them more successful. Therefore, we can't claim unequivocally that we have exactly 0% influence over our customers' business failures. Now, I'm not suggesting we have a high degree of influence, and that's precisely my point. Though our influence varies, I can't think of any single customer factor that we absolutely control. ⚠️ But, clearly, there are some customers that literally CANNOT succeed! This is true, but pretending this is totally out of our control is a lie. 👉 If a customer cannot benefit from our solution, then why did we sell them in the first place? 👈 This is a HUGE driver of churn across the business world, and likely the biggest of them all. We will never solve it by dodging responsibility. This brings me to the final red flag... 🚩 ⓷ "Unavoidable" churn is irrelevant. Though it varies across industries and time, the rate of company closure never represents more than a trivial fraction of churn. Overall, company failure averages only 6.5% over the first ten years of company life. Even in volatile industries, annual closure rates tend to be below 10%. ​ But the impact on your churn will always be much lower than these figures because most companies fail very early before they even get to the point where they are buying business solutions and services. But very few companies accurately track customer closure, so they don't actually know how big this problem really is. I have only worked with a few companies that track this, but every time we analyzed it the results show business closure is an insignificant share of their overall customer churn. THE LESSON IS CLEAR: ► Don't waste your time and dilute the value of your churn data by participating in this fudge. ► The term "Unavoidable Churn" is ultimately poison to accountability and improvement. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Customers don't want your product; they want the result your product promises.

This week: 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #4 Stop Overselling Churn Cheat #6: Making it Hard for Customers To Cancel Recent Webinar: Dave Blake & Greg Daines - part 2 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #1 Stop Selling to Bad-Fit Customers Quote of the Week: Align Everything to Customer Results... 23 Ways to Reduce Churn ► #4. STOP OVERSELLING CLIENT STORY: I recently worked with a large publicly-traded company with an expansive product range. The problem is that sales have been incentivized to load up the initial deal sheet beyond the customer's immediate needs. The result was bloated deals that were difficult to close, and even more difficult to implement. Customers became frustrated when results took too long to materialize, even more so when they could utilize only a small fraction of what they'd purchased. We helped the company by... ⓵ Building a framework that helps reps identify customer results accurately. ⓶ Establishing a team of practice experts to support sales in rationalizing customer needs with the right solutions. ⓷ Sell customers what they need for achievable near-term results, and tell them you'll be back to sell them more results at that point. To maximize long-term retention, it's essential to "keep some of your powder dry" by saving key upgrade opportunities until customers are ready for them. WHY OVERSELLING MATTERS When you sell customers more products or services than they need to get results, you set them up for inevitable frustration later. 👉 Oversold customers understandably churn at a much higher rate than those with a right-sized solution to match their needs. 👈 WHAT TO DO: ✅ Base Sales Compensation on License Utilization WHAT TO MEASURE: ✅ Number of Licenses Utilized ✅ Customer Half-Life by License Utilization WHO'S INVOLVED: ✅ Marketing, Sales CHURN CHEAT #6: Making It Hard For Customers To Cancel Some companies will do anything to prevent customers from canceling. ☎️ For example, some companies (cough, cable companies) force customers to call a phone number and endure aggressive tactics to deter them from canceling. 👩🏼‍🚒 This is very similar to the customer "rescue" playbooks employed by many SaaS companies. THIS DOESN'T WORK. Very few customers are "saved" this way - probably less than 10%. 📈 But it gets worse: our research reveals that the vast majority of "saved" customers will churn soon after. The lesson is clear: You can delay - but not deter - only a small number of customers from canceling. But at what cost? The ultimate outcome is a profound loss of goodwill. Because these practices understandably ENRAGE people. 🤬 Don't be like the cable company. 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #1 - Stop Selling to Bad-Fit Customers 👉 Selling to bad-fit customers may be the largest single driver of churn across all companies. 👈 By definition, bad-fit customers cannot get good results and, therefore, will inevitably churn - usually quickly. But there's a silver lining: Bad-fit churn is also the easiest and fastest type of churn to solve! HOW TO SOLVE BAD-FIT CHURN: 🔬 Identify the most common use cases in your existing customers. 🎯 Rank them in order of how long customers retain, and at the top will be your "Bullseye Use Case." 📢 Share this with marketing and sales so they can aggressively target and attract more of those customers. CLIENT STORY: I worked with a client who was experiencing too much early churn. Their solution managed tasks for front-line workers and was being marketed to a wide range of verticals. 🔬 Our analysis showed that the customers with the best retention were restaurants. 🎯 Narrowing the marketing and messaging to focus on restaurants led to dramatic reductions in churn and increases in marketing and sales performance! This is not a coincidence. Customers who stand to achieve the best results tend to be more interested from the start. Recent Webinar (6-15-23): Dave Blake & Greg Daines on Reducing Churn - part 2 This week I continued my discussion on the 23 Ways to Reduce Churn, this time with Dave Blake, CEO of ClientSuccess.com. We talked through several real company examples that implemented the churn strategies successfully described in the book. If you haven't already, get your copy of the ebook free here: https://www.churnrx.com/23-ways-to-reduce-churn 23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #1 - Stop Selling to Bad-Fit Customers 👉 Selling to bad-fit customers may be the largest single driver of churn across all companies. 👈 By definition, bad-fit customers cannot get good results and, therefore, will inevitably churn - usually quickly. But there's a silver lining: Bad-fit churn is also the easiest and fastest type of churn to solve! HOW TO SOLVE BAD-FIT CHURN: 🔬 Identify the most common use cases in your existing customers. 🎯 Rank them in order of how long customers retain, and at the top of the list will be your true "Bullseye Use Case." 📢 Share this with marketing and sales so they can aggressively target and attract more of those customers. CLIENT STORY: I worked with a client who was experiencing too much early churn. Their solution managed tasks for front-line workers and was being marketed to a wide range of verticals. 🔬 Our analysis showed that the customers with the best retention were restaurants. 🎯 Narrowing the marketing and messaging to focus on restaurants led not only to dramatic reductions in churn but also to increases in marketing and sales performance! This is not a coincidence. Customers who stand to achieve the best results tend to be more interested from the start. QUOTE OF THE WEEK The key to preventing churn is to know the customer is failing before they do.

In this webinar hosted by ClientSuccess, Greg Daines (Founder/CEO of ChurnRX) shares 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023. Hear impactful insights and practical advice on how to reduce churn at your company.

This week: New eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 Recent Webinar: Kristi Faltorusso & Greg Daines - part 1 Upcoming Webinar: Kristi Faltorusso & Greg Daines - part 2 Churn Cheat #5: "Good Churn" Quote of the Week: Align Everything to Customer Results... 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023 My new eBook is here!! Download your copy now: https://www.churnrx.com/23-ways-to-reduce-churn THE BACKSTORY: As a founder-CEO in SaaS, I discovered that the hardest challenge I faced was making my customers successful - consistently - and at scale. 📈 When I applied the customer success "best practices," they didn't work very well. And I eventually realized something was wrong with our basic ideas about customer retention. When I searched for knowledge based on solid data, I came up empty-handed. Nearly everything that passes for "customer research" has been little more than customer surveys and anecdotes. 💬 THE DATA: 📊 So I decided this had to be solved. For the last several years, I've been working closely with many of the world's best SaaS and subscription companies collecting and studying real customer data to answer the big questions about why customers stay and what really works. 📕 This new eBook [link below] is the product of many years of research on millions of customers. And the results are astonishing! This eBook: ✅ Documents conclusive results of dozens of new quantitative studies ✅ Answers the biggest questions about why customers stay ✅ Settles debates that have gone unresolved for years ✅ Reveals exactly which methods drive the highest customer retention ✅ Lays out the most important KPIs for improving performance ✅ Shows how the best companies achieve exceptional retention 👉 This report is your ultimate cheat sheet for conquering customer churn. 👈 This is the most important thing I've ever written, and I sincerely hope you find it valuable. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Please share your reactions below. Download your copy now: https://www.churnrx.com/23-ways-to-reduce-churn Recent Webinar: Kristi Faltorusso & Greg Daines on Reducing Churn (6-8-23) by Kristi Faltorusso, CCO at ClientSuccess.com A few weeks ago I got to see my friend Greg Daines which was great. But you know what's better, hosting a killer webinar with Greg where he just drops knowledge bombs left and right. Greg and the team at ChurnRX recently put together a report, 23 Way to Reduce Churn ( you can go to their website and download the report) and Greg and I had the opportunity to go through a few of our favorite ways to reduce churn with a few hundred of our closest friends 😉 I picked a few of the ones I was most interested in discussing with Greg so yesterday we tackled the following: 7. Target Larger Customers 10. Identify Every Customer's Results 12. Require Onboarding For Every Customer 15. Focus on Disengaged Customers 16. Track Time to First Results 17. Stop focusing on Satisfaction We literally could have spent an hour on each topic but managed to make a few good points and tell a few stories around these 6. Here are my notes and thoughts: 7. Target Larger Customers: This won't always make sense for your business; if you target SMB then going after mid-market or Enterprise might not make sense BUT you'll have have be realistic about your target market - you will absolutely experience higher churn as a result. 10. Identify Every Customer's Results: We know that your customer's don't always know what their goals are or what to anticipate from your product but it's your job to be clear on what their pain is and highlighting how your product/service can solve that. 12. Require Onboarding For Every Customer: Even if you have a longtail and are building out a scale program there are ways to track if your customers are going through and completing Onboarding successfully. Customers who "opt-out" of or don't complete onboarding have a significantly higher churn rate. 15. Focus on Disengaged Customers: Yes, but focus on how you can keep your customers engaged. If you run into an exec who punts the project to their admin and walks away, you have to find a way to bring them back in. Once you lose them, you've lost them. 16. Track Time to First Results: You need to track, socialize and celebrate a first result ... We don't need to accomplish their goal in a few weeks but you have to accomplish something that will obviously help them get closer to their goal. That milestone recognition is critical. 17. Stop focusing on Satisfaction: Customer Satisfaction has 0 impact on customer retention! Stop trying to delight and make your customer happy - that does not impact retention. Obviously we had so much more to say so you'll have to go listen to the recording when it's available. But I do have some good news, looks like Greg and I will be doing a part 2 so we can tackle a few more with all of you. ↓ Upcoming Webinar (6-15-23): Kristi Faltorusso & Greg Daines on Reducing Churn - part 2 This week I'll be back on with Kristi Faltorusso to continue our tour through the many intriguing findings and recommendations in my new ebook, 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023. Don't miss it! Be sure to follow Kristi Faltorusso so you don't miss the registration link as soon as it is available: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristiserrano/ THERE'S A BETTER WAY TO MEASURE CHURN There's a much more effective way to measure and manage your REAL churn. I'll gladly show you how to do it with a FREE CHURN ANALYSIS of your real data! (click the link below ↓) Get your Free Churn Analysis and start measuring your churn accurately with the ultimate Churn Dashboard! CHURN CHEAT #5: "Good Churn" Is there ever such a thing as "good churn"? In a word: NO. This ridiculous concept keeps popping up in many places to refer to various things... ...all of which are idiotic! ⓵ EXAMPLE 1: Bad-Fit Churn I've often heard people suggest that some churn is actually "good" because it filters out customers who can't win. 👉 Customers who can't get good results with your offering should never have been sold in the first place. 👈 Everything that happens with bad-fit customers represents a drain on the organization. That's why bad-fit churn is arguably the absolute WORST churn of all! ​ ⓶ EXAMPLE 2: Temporary Customers Others use "good churn" to refer to those customers who only needed the solution temporarily and will be back when they need it again. Why would this be good? These customers are showing that your solution is not needed continuously, which undermines the entire logic of a subscription business. If many customers leave after achieving good results, it points to a serious problem with your offering that must be addressed, or it will ultimately be impossible for the business to achieve durable growth. ​ ⓷ EXAMPLE 3: Legacy Customers In this scenario, "good churn" refers to customers from an old, deprecated version of the product, or leftover from before a major pivot. This is mostly about being honest. It's essential to acknowledge the inevitable churn that is the result of a business disruption or transition. But it is just silly and phony to pretend such churn is somehow "good." ► For recurring or subscription businesses, customer churn is always bad. Every lost customer represents costs, time, and effort down the drain. Even when we technically "made money" on the customer before they left, all their future revenue walks out the door with them. So it doesn't matter if it's inevitable, or who's at fault, customer churn will never be a good thing. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: High customer retention is the outcome of aligning everything in the business to produce, measure, and materialize customer results.