Subscription-Based Businesses Can Learn Tons From Their Churning Customers

There has been a huge increase in the number of subscription businesses in recent years, with roughly half of all consumers subscribing to at least one service which is media-related. All business owners want their company to be successful over the long haul, and that means you need to maintain a constant customer base.This will require that you not only focus some attention on acquiring new customers, but that you also make a concerted effort to keep your existing customer base happy so you can retain them. There are some software tools such as Brightback which help subscription businesses discover the reasons why customers leave, so those issues can be addressed and corrected. This article will discuss some of the things businesses can learn about the reasons customers end up leaving them.

Why you need to know

Many industry experts agree that we have reached a time where customer retention should be considered the number one possibility for increasing profits, rather than focusing on growth opportunities all the time. If you have a subscription business, you will be losing money each time one of your customers presses the unsubscribe button, and that makes it important for you to know why your customers are leaving. It might be possible that you can develop a different offer which takes their concerns into consideration and helps to change their mind.Even if you fail to reach a particular customer, it's possible that by taking prompt action you will prevent others from leaving. The last thing you want is for a constant churn to be going on among your customers. This same fact is true for companies which are not subscription-based in nature. It's a good idea for all companies to be in tune with the true needs and desires of their customer base, because that could stave off a number of departures.

Main reasons for customers leaving

In some cases, there's not much you can do when a customer decides to leave, for instance if the customer no longer has a need for your product. It's also possible that their budget has undergone a significant change, and they can no longer afford to purchase from you. However, there's something you can do about the majority of reasons why customers might leave you, and you should make every effort to address these to prevent customer departures.

You should never lose customers as a result of them seeing diminished value in your product, or because they had a bad customer service experience with someone in your company. Many times, customers will leave because they feel that the product or service you're offering is just too complicated, and you haven't provided adequate materials to explain the product, so they can actually realize value from it.Another very common reason for customers leaving your business is that they get frustrated with excessive wait times when they call in for support or assistance. They might also get a response from your customer service department which they considered to be inadequate or not helpful, and they just get so frustrated that they abandon your business altogether.Then too, there are cases where some customers might still be able to afford your product, but they don't feel they're getting adequate value from it. If a customer feels like your product is a good one but it's over-priced, that might be another reason why they abandon your business in favor of a competitor.

How to prevent customers from leaving

To prevent customers from leaving your company, you're going to have to jump into action very quickly and address whatever their concerns are, before they actually leave. Break down whatever their reasons are for being unhappy and then find actionable solutions which can be taken to overcome those reasons. If it's a problem with onboarding and explaining your product adequately, you might need to provide better educational materials with your products, or to make them less complicated functionally.

There's also some software you can use which will segment customers and make various offers which are intended to prevent them from unsubscribing. You can also create customized filters which will direct customers toward pages which appeal to them the most. As an example, one customer might find the best page to be one which offers them a discount on your products, while another customer might be attracted by a page offering a digital version of a product they have already been subscribed to.Even businesses which are not subscription-based can adopt some of the same tactics for preventing excessive customer churn. When you make a concerted effort to learn about why customers are leaving your business, it will give you a better understanding of all the risks and challenges which your company is faced with. Once you know all the downsides about experiences which your customers have had, you'll have a much better opportunity to focus on these particular issues, and reduce their impact in the future.

Putting it into practice

There are many ways that you can obtain this kind of information about your customers, and then put it to use for future customer retention. You can conduct periodic surveys or reviews which include most of your target audience, so you can find out exactly what they're thinking about your products, as well as any concerns or problems which they have discovered.Any insights which you gain from these surveys can be solid gold in terms of preventing future customer loss, assuming that you make a legitimate effort to address all these concerns. Again, there are some cases of customer abandonment that you simply won't be able to do anything about. But for those which are preventable, you should do everything possible to retain customers which have been loyal in the past, because as all businessmen are aware, it's much cheaper to retain customers than it is to acquire new ones.That means you need to incorporate your findings from customer surveys into your business processes, so that ongoing adjustments can be made, and so new offers can be made available to your customers which address their concerns, and make your products more appealing and more affordable.