It hurts when you start your day and find a message from the Customer Success team informing you that you lost a client… and it was one of the most successful ones.
You feel frustrated and underappreciation for all your efforts as I know how focused you are on delivering a great client experience.
The problem here is avoiding getting too attached to the problem, and not spending enough time focusing on a solution. And that’s what I have to share with you today.
You’re always going to be at risk of losing your best customers
This is a fact we must accept before moving on. You can create the environment and support needed for building a surround of raving fan clients, but they can still leave. It’s out of your control.
But although churning clients is a lag indicator, we can look at some of the lead indicators to understand what may have caused this departure. If I was in that position what would be the five things I’d be looking for?
Keep a finger on the pulse for the client’s health scores
If you’re doing a great job at tracking client success you should have one or several health scores that will be monitored frequently on top of a solid Quality Control system.
Accounts that haven’t been activated yet are at risk of churning.
Accounts that are not in full adoption yet, are at risk of churning.
So if you go back, can you find if the client was at least using the key features of your program? How long did it take for that to happen?
How many of your clients were in full adoption using the majority of the value you have to offer? What are the friction points preventing them from doing that?
Sometimes the only way to do that is to ensure your customer success team consistently creates touchpoints with their clients. Check-ins, messages, emails, or another medium that allows for bidirectional communication.
Are you tracking activation during the onboarding process?
A big misconception most companies have is to think that onboarding is a single event, like a sales call. It’s not, it’s a process.
On average what we’ve seen over the past three years in the online service space, is that it takes on average 30 days for a client to be fully onboarded into your service.
This is why we tend to present an onboarding call as a non-negotiable for a business made of raving fans. It’s not a cost, it’s a long-term investment. This is how you build trust, and relationships at scale.
This can reduce your churn to half of what it is today.
Reviewing the client’s journey (preventing client loss)
Again, tracking will be key to avoid you being lost in the dark.
A solid tracking system will help you understand:
- How engaged was the client before leaving
- What progress did they make toward their goals
- How successful they were, regarding us meeting their expectation
If you have a team of CSMs they will know enough about this, and they will be on top of client notes.
Look at this without any preconceived notions or judgment, as we want to learn from experience. Your team might have done something wrong, but it doesn’t mean it was on purpose.
Meet the customer before they leave (improving client loyalty)
It’s hard to have the willingness to jump on a call after they said they will leave…
But this is the most important step before they go on their own. You can collect information that explains what they liked the most, what made them leave, and how your service was not seen as a fit for their needs (and wants) anymore.
Not only is the information valuable, but your customer will also feel like they were more than a dollar sign, and that you still deserve their trust.
Don’t stop following up
This is more of a long-term game approach, but a critical one.
Companies spend tons of money on ads to create awareness, to warm up their prospects, and follow up with them during the sales process.
But barely any company does that when a client leaves. This is your opportunity to stand out like no other company.
Having a strong follow-up system in place that can include automated messages, emails, or other communication while also a mix of personalized reachouts, can remind the client we’re willing to be present from a place of service, even more than the company they hired after leaving you.
Last thoughts
All these steps are fairly simple and common sense.
The problem is that after auditing more than 100 companies with our consulting offer, I can guarantee this is not common practice.
And it’s never about big levers… but small things that can shape the experience.
Hope you can get this implemented asap,
Jay
