There are no shortage of articles about dealing with churn.
More often than not though, they are aimed at the customer success or the product teams and what they can do to retain customers once there’s a hint of dissatisfaction in the air.
If you look at the big picture though, it’s likely you’ll find critical points in the customer journey that affect the likelihood of churn going all the way back to the start. So what’s better than approaching a problem upstream, and dealing with it early so you minimise it happening in the first place?
If we think about one of the main reasons for churn:
The customer doesn’t achieve their desired outcome, along with having an appropriate experience with your company.
Instead of trying to figure out what those desired outcomes are after they become a customer and wondering where you could have made the experience better, there’s a perfect opportunity to set everyone up for success by focusing on those upfront. If sales is an island and there’s a disconnect with the rest of the teams, it will have a negative impact on the experience. Steli Efti highlights some potential issues that you can look out for in this article.
So let’s think about how to consider the evaluation and purchasing stages of the customer journey as part of the whole and how to make it as seamless as possible.
Look out for potential wins like:
- When the rep uncovers the core problem they are trying to solve, is that documented and shared with the success team?
- Is the sales team equipped to discuss problems before features?
- Do their desired outcomes actually match with the product you’re selling – are they a good fit customer?
- Are reps providing value at every interaction, rather than “just checking in”?
If the customer starts using your product without being encouraged to think about what they want to get out of it, there’s more scope for dissatisfaction to creep in. How do you measure success, if you aren’t sure what it looks like?