3 Customer Churn Prediction Strategies for Your CSM Team

Customer churn is an important metric all businesses need to measure. While it may not be the most satisfying metric, it allows your business to identify – and hopefully improve  – your customer attrition rate. Your customer churn rate shows how many customers have ceased services with your company and abandoned your brand. Of course, it’s important to understand that customers can leave for any number of reasons. 

Some customers will leave after just one bad experience while others will give a business the benefit of the doubt a few times before ending their contract. It is even possible that some accounts will abandon a brand simply because they do not receive as many ‘bonuses’ or incentives as new customers. 

If your company’s customers don’t feel appreciated – especially if they have been a long time account – they may seek out another brand that makes the feel as though they matter. At the end of the day, every company is looking for the best of both worlds: exceptional benefits and results-driven products and services. 

Dive into three strategies customer churn prediction strategies that your CSM team can implement to keep your customer base strong for years to come.

Strategy #1. Focus On Your Most Loyal Customers

One of the best ways to predict customer churn is to focus on your most loyal customers. Consider which accounts have been around since the beginning and then determine how active they have been in the past quarter. Have they stepped back in communication with your CSM team or decreased their usage of your product? If you haven’t heard or seen activity from them in a while, it could be an indication they are taking a step back to evaluate the partnership. Check in on your top tier of customers and see how your CSM team can be of assistance. Also, be sure to schedule a quarterly business review (QBR) at the beginning of each 3-month period if you haven’t already. After all, we all know it is more expensive to sign on a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

By keeping a strong line of communication with your loyal customers, you can feel out the conversation and predict who can be saved. Help your CSMs do everything they can to identify customers who are at risk proactively, rather than waiting until your company receives notice. 

Strategy #2. Ask How Your Product or Service Can Be Improved

Ask your customers regularly (we’re talking at least quarterly) what can be improved. Long time customers will be more apt than newer accounts to let your CSMs know if your product or service has declined over the years. These customers will help to shed light not only on how their current CSM relationships are operating, but also inform how the product or service can be improved by offering suggestions for new features or services. 

By soliciting valuable feedback from customers on a regular basis, your CSM team will be able to recognize trends and make any necessary improvements as well as share findings with other departments, such as product, sales, and marketing. 

Strategy #3. Determine Your Customers’ Level of Satisfaction

Your customers’ overall level of satisfaction with your company and the products and services you offer is crucial for retaining customers. If your customers aren’t satisfied, they will leave your brand and instead do business with a competitor who can fill a void. Your company may have an amazing product, but if your customers do not feel appreciated, get timely responses, or see results from your product or service, suffice to say it’s only a matter of time until they leave. 

Even with the best CSM team on the planet, however, if you have a product that often fails to meet expectations, you will have a high customer churn rate. Without high customer health scores, you cannot expect to retain customers. By understanding each customer’s SuccessScore, your CSM team can report on customer health or any configured score through a consistent approach that delivers alignment and visibility to your entire organization.

If your customer churn rate appears high, implement new programs that help your customers feel appreciated! Provide perks that are only available to your long time, loyal customers and send out personalized gifts that show you truly appreciate their loyalty to your brand. (PS – Need some more ideas? This ebook is chock full of ideas that will help you put your customers first!)

Customer churn is possible to reduce if the trends are caught early and retention methods are put into place. If you have questions about how our customer success software can improve customer retention and reduce customer churn, don’t wait — contact us today!