Meet the Monsters that Cause Customer Churn
These Churn Monsters may look cute but they take big bites out of your customer base causing nightmares for your Customer Success team. In this playbook, we will catalog the common monsters that cause customer churn and give actionable tips on how to combat each churn monster.
What Does Churn Look Like?
Actionable tips are provided to help combat each churn monster, and insight into how ChurnZero can help.
MEET THE MONSTERS
Black Swan
Unlucky
Cash-Strapped
Slacker
Manic
Abandoned
Stuck
Ghosted
Bad Fit
Acquired
Championless
Disengaged
Headwinds
Know it All
Victim
Cheater
CHURN MONSTER
BLACK SWAN
Characteristics
Customer who is affected by an unforeseen and very unpredictable circumstance with potentially severe consequences and widespread impact. Some examples include a pandemic (COVID-19) or an abrupt financial crisis (Banking Crisis of 2008).
Churn Combat Tips
Pivot quickly, if needed, to address the customer’s needs by providing relevant resources or timely product feature releases to help with issues at hand.
If they are truly impacted financially and are being told to consolidate spend, be willing to work with the client to make concessions versus them being forced to cancel their subscription.
ChurnZero Boost
Use ChurnZero segmentation to help prioritize support to those customers most affected by an emergency. Update health scores to focus on impacted verticals and very short-term churn factors. You can also use automated emails and in-app messages to communicate effectively to customers during critical time periods.
CHURN MONSTER
UNLUCKY
Characteristics
Customer who bought your product with the best of intentions of being successful in utilizing and adopting it but along the way they have been hit with misfortune and adversity making the likelihood of success much harder.
Churn Combat Tips
Remind the customer about the reasons they started the project to help them not lose sight of their objectives.
Offer a “restart” (subscription adjustment, credits, etc.) and an agreement from both parties to double down efforts.
If appropriate make it personal with a visit or video conference to give the customer confidence that you are right there with them.
ChurnZero Boost
CHURN MONSTER
CASH-STRAPPED
Characteristics
Customer who once secured funds to purchase your products/services, but due to business changes their budget has since been cut, and they are being forced to reduce expenses and scale back resources.
Churn Combat Tips
Revisit their primary pain points that led to them purchasing in the first place and highlight how your product or service has since solved those problems and lead to previous success.
Help the customer put together a comprehensive business case to justify the renewal to their supervisor and finance department.
Put together pricing/package options for the customer that include discounts and/or downgrade options to get them through the financial strain with a lower price point.
ChurnZero Boost
CHURN MONSTER
SLACKER
Characteristics
Customer who could receive value but is unwilling to put in the effort to either get started or continue using your product.
Churn Combat Tips
Uncover the true cause for the slacker behavior whether it’s lack of time, being overwhelmed or other underlying reasons.
Address the customer about their lack of progress and explain how doing XYZ can actually make their job easier.
Help them break overwhelming tasks into smaller parts to make them seem more approachable. Be sure to praise them for these small successes along the way.
ChurnZero Boost
CHURN MONSTER
VICTIM
Characteristics
Customer who is attempting to use your product to help them achieve success, however they are running into product issues.
Churn Combat Tips
Listen carefully to what the customer has to say about the issue they are experiencing. Once you have listened, immediately empathize with their position to let them know you have heard their problem and are going to work with them to resolve the issue.
Be sure to ask lots of follow-up questions to help identify the full scope of the problem so you can better troubleshoot.
Don’t be afraid to escalate as needed. Work with the customer to come to a solution they are satisfied with. If this solution will require development time, be sure to provide the customer regular status updates until the fix has been deployed.
ChurnZero Boost
ChurnScores are customer health scores that give Customer Success Managers a deeper understanding of customers and their likelihood to not renew. The variables that can be used for the ChurnScores include event data, fields from your CRM or other sources like customer support tickets.
CHURN MONSTER
MANIC
Characteristics
Customer who is feverishly busy and seems to have a frantic work pace which results in an overall degrade of progress.
Churn Combat Tips
Try to determine the reason for the scatterbrained behavior. Is this a constant state for the customer or is it due to some current circumstances in their organization?
Assure the customer that you are there to help them reach success. Based on your knowledge of the account take the liberty of prioritizing the tasks that need to be done that will ultimately help lessen the workload in the long-run. Coach the customer towards these high-ranking goals and objectives.
Continue to monitor the customer. Schedule weekly meetings to help keep them on task until hopefully they are able to slow down and/or multitask better.
ChurnZero Boost
CHURN MONSTER
ABANDONED
Characteristics
Customer who needs support or guidance but for whatever reason has unfortunately been neglected and is left feeling helpless.
Churn Combat Tips
Neglect usually happens slowly, and it creeps up on a customer relationship. Instead of focusing only on customers with fires, be sure to give attention to your other customers to help prevent them becoming an at-risk customer later down the road.
If you notice it’s been awhile since you’ve connected with a particular client, take a look at their account and conduct an audit of their utilization. Schedule a meeting to go over this account review with the customer. Put together a success plan that includes needed support and guidance to help them meet their gaps.
At the end of every meeting with a customer, be sure to get something on the calendar for your next engagement while that customer is top of mind, so it’s not accidently forgotten.
ChurnZero Boost
CHURN MONSTER
STUCK
Characteristics
Customer who is stuck at a certain phase in the lifecycle journey – implementation, on-boarding, training, product adoption, etc.
Churn Combat Tips
Map out the ideal customer journey so you are able to monitor and track each accounts’ progress. Flag customers early on that seem to be falling behind so you can help keep them moving forward.
Uncover the stalling point(s). Understanding the roadblocks that are holding up the process will be key in working with the customer to overcome them.
Identify a champion on the customer side, who will be your liaison in helping to move their internal teams forward in the journey.
ChurnZero Boost
Journeys let you map out milestones and track the tasks and achievements that will drive the customer through each phase of the lifecycle in an organized and efficient manner. Customer Success Managers can also set timelines for each milestone and for the journey overall, setting clear expectations for your processes internally and externally.
CHURN MONSTER
GHOSTED
Characteristics
Churn Combat Tips
Refrain from declaring your past attempts to contact them. By drawing attention to the customer’s silence, you are only making them feel guilty, which isn’t going to spur action, but make them want to continue their avoidance behavior.
Vary your contact attempts. Switch up the day of the week and the time of day. It’s possible you’ve been trying to get them on the phone during a time they have a standing meeting.
Throw a Hail Mary. If it’s been way too long, send a handwritten note with a gift to their office. Most likely they’ll feel inclined to reach out to at least say thank you.
ChurnZero Boost
In-app communications and automated emails give Customer Success Managers other alternatives for reaching their customers. Our usage trend analysis can also find users and accounts that are trending down in engagement. This will allow Customer Success Managers to re-engage them before they ghost on you.
CHURN MONSTER
CHEATER
Characteristics
Customer who is actively being wooed by one of your competitors in attempts to steal their business.
Churn Combat Tips
Be great (i.e. provide value). The best way to keep a client for life, and to fend of the competition, is to be the best option.
Know your customer and their goals and challenges, and make sure they understand your unique value proposition. If you are seen as a trusted resource, it’s going to be hard to walk away from that.
Conduct competitive intel, so when a customer reveals they are thinking of switching you know exactly how to stack up the reasons why that would be a poor decision.
ChurnZero Boost
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a customer satisfaction benchmark that measures how likely your customers are to recommend you. If a customer falls into the passive or detractor segments, it’s a signal that they could be at risk of churn and switching to a competitor, and that Customer Success Manager should reach out to change the mindset before it’s too late.
CHURN MONSTER
BAD FIT
Characteristics
Customer who is unable to receive value from your product or service due to a mismatch of current needs and offerings.
Churn Combat Tips
First step is identifying a bad fit customer as early on in the process as possible. Don’t jump to conclusions but get a better understanding of who is a stretch fit customer and who is really a bad fit customer.
Be as upfront and honest as you can with the customer, so expectations are understood and both parties can make informed decisions for next steps.
Sometimes it’s necessary to count your losses and let these bad fit customers churn. It’s in everyone’s best interest as they can be a drag on growth, a waste of resources, and harmful to employee morale and industry word-of-mouth.
ChurnZero Boost
ChurnZero’s Account Segments are a powerful tool to let Customer Success Managers easily group customers together that share attributes and/or behaviors (i.e. bad fit customers). Tagging your bad fit customers will allow Customer Success Managers to adjust your engagement strategies to a low-touch model since their likelihood to churn is pretty much inevitable.
CHURN MONSTER
ACQUIRED
Characteristics
Customer whose company has been acquired making a lot of things uncertain about the future.
Churn Combat Tips
As soon as you get wind of a merger or acquisition, proactively reach out to your day-to-day contacts for more information to assess the potential threats at hand. There will be a lot of unknowns, but request that they keep you in the loop. Be sure to offer your assistance in this transition period.
Just as there are threats there’s potential for positives. Try to get an introduction to the new players on the team who might influence decisions, so you can position yourself for continued success.
Find out who pays the bills now. Are there other business process changes like PO requests that you should now be aware of? Don’t let a wrong invoice address be the reason why you aren’t getting paid.
ChurnZero Boost
The Account Profile makes it easy to find everything about an account – from key details, to open tasks, to usage trends, to engagement with content – all in one place. This will be beneficial in understanding the current state of the customer going into this transition period. Also, automatically tagging key users within the new organization will be useful in identifying your allies early on.
CHURN MONSTER
CHAMPIONLESS
Characteristics
Customer who used to be your champion or main point of contact within the organization but has since left their role at the company.
Churn Combat Tips
Often times you won’t receive any advance notice about a champion leaving until after the exit has taken place. Instead of waiting for someone else from the organization to get around to alerting you, set up your own alerts that will ping you if usage ceases for a contact.
Check on LinkedIn to verify if your contact has in fact left the company. If so, send a message congratulating them on their new role and ask who the best person would be to connect with in their absence. (Also, you never know they could now be your new champion at another organization.
Reach out to the next point of contact to schedule a customized training session to help educate, engage, and inspire the remaining users to become your next champion(s).
ChurnZero Boost
ChurnZero Events are actions and activities that your users do inside your product. The tracking of these events allows you to create contact segments, account segments, alerts and tags based on deep behavioral data. For example, if you see that a user has been deleted, possibly signaling a departure, you could then set up an automated alert to start your investigation. You can also use contact profiles to easily help identify new champions and allies, so you are not left vulnerable to just one.
CHURN MONSTER
DISENGAGED
Characteristics
Churn Combat Tips
Set up automated alerts so you know when usage data is trending downward. Get involved before they become totally disengaged.
Reach out offering a helping hand to get them back on track. Set small and attainable goals at first to build their motivation and confidence back up.
Highlight new product launches or features that they most likely don’t know about that could pique their interest.
ChurnZero Boost
CHURN MONSTER
KNOW IT ALL
Characteristics
Churn Combat Tips
Let them know how much you value them as a customer.
Give constructive feedback, but at all costs avoid arguing as it will only be counterproductive to the team.
Express yourself with clarity and decisiveness. If the customer tries to intervene, re-state the plan as often as necessary.
ChurnZero Boost
ChurnZero Walkthroughs are multi-step guides that integrate into your product’s web interface and direct your users through specific features or simply display content at the ideal time. This can be a sly way of getting information to your Know It All customer without the hassle.
CHURN MONSTER
HEADWINDS
Characteristics
A customer that is struggling to navigate difficult times, like a long economic downturn.
Churn Combat Tips
Keep focused. Managing customers well is a must in an economic downturn. Every account matters.
Reach out offering a helping hand to get them back on track. Set small and attainable goals at first to build their motivation and confidence back up.
Adapt to their needs and be creative. Some customers may need more flexible terms in order to remain a customer.
Revisit goals to ensure value. The goals the customer was working toward in an economic boom may be completely different in a downturn. Find out what their business needs.
ChurnZero Boost
Use ChurnZero segmentation to prioritize support to those customers most affected by the downturn. Update health scores to focus on impacted verticals and short-term churn factors.
