In today’s competitive market, both customer acquisition and retention are necessary for success—but while every business can expect a certain degree of loss, most instances of customer churn are preventable with the right strategies.

Read on to learn how to prevent your customers from heading in the opposite direction and remain loyal to your company. 

What is Customer Churn? 

This term is used to quantify the percentage of customers who fail to return to purchase products or services from your business over a specified period of time. To calculate your customer churn rate you will need to know the number of customers that were lost and divide that number by the number of customers you started with.  As an example, if, during the first three months of the year you had 500 customers and at the end of that period you had 475, you would divide the difference of 25 customers by 500 for a customer churn rate of five percent.  

Tips to Alleviate Customer Churn

Keep your customer churn rate low with these tips:

Provide exceptional value. 

Extend your reach beyond your product or service, by providing relevant content and materials to your valued customers. Blog posts, newsletters, event reminders, and other email content will keep your name at the top of the inbox and remind your clients why they chose you. 

Enhance your customer service and support.

Help your customers to feel heard and valued with proactive solutions and stellar communications to solve existing problems or prevent future issues. Take all complaints seriously and take affirmative action to ensure complete customer satisfaction. 

Get personal.

Regardless of your customer base, employ strategies that make each one feel special and unique. Personalized emails and special offers help to foster a connection that can help you retain customer loyalty. 

Ask the hard questions.

It’s important to understand why a client opted to end your relationship, and the best way to gain insight is to ask them directly. Ask what you could have done differently to retain their business and find out who your replacement is and what makes them a better choice. 

Identify at-risk customers. 

There are always a few customers who are contemplating leaving, but if you can identify them in time you may prevent a loss. Offer specialized incentives to those you haven’t heard from in a while to spark a renewed interest.