Share your best churn tips!
Everyone has churn and we are all dealing with it in different ways. Let's share what worked for you to reduce your churn so others can benefit from it too!
Everyone has churn and we are all dealing with it in different ways. Let's share what worked for you to reduce your churn so others can benefit from it too!
100% agree on the Free trial option - this works, but only to a certain extent, you need to force user action during these trial periods/extensions. (We've also seen that 7 days - with the option to extend) forces urgency and we've increased interaction with our tools.
When trialing a new tool, often an empty platform can be quite daunting as you don't know where to start. We've seen that including 'Demo data' so the user can start playing around immediately has been great in showcasing the product value, and reducing sign up churn.
Also, we've seen that setting up onboarding flows, like when a user signs up, the moment they enter our platform we're getting them to interact with the tools has really helped those that are interested stay, and those that aren't at least leave educated enough about the tool to know it was for them.
Flows that have also worked especially well are those that encourage users to:
-Get other teammates signed up
-Installing, downloading whatever extensions, scripts, etc
-Using features, creating process themselves
I would add my experience with free trials. I work for 2 Saas tools - one is aimed at mid-large companies and enterprise clients for context it is a UX research tool - https://www.uxtweak.com/ and the other one is SaaS for small businesses and freelancers and it is an invoicing app - https://www.billdu.com/ .
At UXtweak the product we initially started with a 30-day trial, that was automatically given to you at registration. We saw that pretty much nobody plays around with the tools as they thought they had a lot of time and eventually forgot about it. Then we shortened it to 14 days and then to 7 - every time we shortened the trial period our conversion rates and engagement in trials went up. In the end, we actually canceled the automatic trial period and now we give out 14 days at a request. With such a setup we have been experiencing the best results so far.
At Billdu we tried shortening the trial period and it was a disaster. The approach that worked for us is to give an automatic 30-day trial and put the users on the highest plan. Then with emails, notifications and content push them to use the app and actually help them to form a habit of using the app. Then after the trial is ending they have a hard time letting it go and a good deal of them convert.
So what I would suggest is to know your audience and know how they use the product. According to that experiment with the trials - ideally experiment on a smaller percentage of the user, if you don't want to piss of everyone :D
Nice addition here! Definitely in agreement with knowing your user combined with 'trial' and improvement.
I worked at a B2C subscription service as we scaled from hundreds to tens of thousands of paid subscribers. Of all the (many) things we tried over the years, the most impactful was putting our money where our mouth was at the time of churn by giving people a month free on us if they decide to stick around. We would then use that as a signal to prove our value to that subscriber over the next 30 days.
While it doesn't save everyone, it's all upside as the cost of continuing service for a month was zero and even saving 15%-30% of those that take advantage of the deal can significantly impact overall churn. We would measure this in cohorts based on the day the person took advantage of the free month (e.g. how many left at 30 days, 60 days, etc...) to get the full picture of ROI.
Love this tip as you can see why people would be reluctant but it can be such a win!
If you're looking to reduce customer churn, here are a few professional tips to keep in mind:
I also replied to something similar in r/customersuccess about firstly getting feedback from (ex) clients, and also considering that is churn even the metric we should be looking at?
The company I'm working for deals with churn in the following way:
a. Responsive churners: We do Exit interviews (we get more than you'd think - everyone loves to share their opinion) we've also managed to revive clients because it turns us to realize they actually needed something they didn't realize we could offer
b. Non-responsive users: A quick NPS style email
Subject: Pick a number
Body of the email: Why are you leaving:
Again if people can just reply quickly and easily you're more likely to get feedback as to why they churned
To turn this concept on it's head a bit of 'how to reduce churn'', maybe we need to look at how we can avoid churn from the beginning of the cycle.
Things to consider:
Hope this was insightful, happy to elaborate on any points
Amazing insights
Find indicators of churn, either with data or common sense (low usage, for example). Set flags for the indicators and reach out when they happen. Ask how you can help.
Encourage yearly plans.
I know the default is to give like 10% off or two months free, but if you go beyond that you'll get more bites.
A yearly plan gives users a bigger window to try out your product. At the same time it instantly improves your churn.
The first step in client retention is to keep your clients happy. Happy clients are more likely to come back for future services. You can do this by being friendly and greeting them when they arrive at your shop. If possible, try to schedule appointments around their work hours or school schedules and avoid scheduling too close to holidays and weekends.
Social media is becoming more and more popular among consumers. Make sure that you have a social media page set up to promote your business. This helps increase brand awareness while providing your customers with information about upcoming events and promotions.
Make sure that you provide excellent customer service. A good way to ensure this is by offering free samples of products to your clients. Also, make sure that you answer any questions they may have regarding your product - this is what we do at https://beerbaconliberty.com.
This may help! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7G2ES1n6ic&t=7s