Involuntary churn is failure to collect (payment issues, expired cards). Voluntary churn is a decision (no value, no budget, switching). The fixes differ. Involuntary churn is mostly ops and billing hygiene. Voluntary churn is product–market fit, onboarding, and value communications. Separate the streams in your reporting or you’ll chase the wrong problems.
Expansion works when eligibility, timing, and value narrative are explicit. Eligibility = adoption threshold + business context. Timing = observed usage plateau or unlocked capability. Narrative = “outcome next” not “more features.” Track win rate and payback against this criteria or change it.
Keep risk reviews to three questions: what moved this account’s health since last review, what’s the next intervention, and what evidence says it will work. Ban status theater. If we can’t state the risk and the counterfactual clearly, log an assumption and test it.
Churn is a lagging indicator. By the time a customer cancels, the problem started months earlier, usually as low engagement or stalled adoption. If you’re reacting to churn risk at renewal time, you’re already behind. The simplest formula for keeping customers I have been able to validate is below: Retention = Experience + Outcomes(Adoption(Engagement)) Work…
Almost every organization has attempted customer journey mapping at some point. Too often, the result is an eye-pleasing visualization that soon sits forgotten in a slide deck. This happens because we don’t use CJMs in a way that guides us in solving real business problems. This methodology takes a different approach. It focuses on creating…
The first two months set posture. The job isn’t heroics—it’s clarity. Outcomes the company expects from CS. Two or three leading indicators we’ll live and die by. Cadences that expose reality fast. What I do: – Map just enough of the current journey to find leverage, then stop mapping and run plays. – Publish a…
Two canonical formulas: – Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) = (Starting ARR − Contraction − Churn) ÷ Starting ARR – Net Dollar Retention (NDR) = (Starting ARR + Expansion − Contraction − Churn) ÷ Starting ARR GRR shows how well you keep what you have. NDR shows whether existing customers grow enough to offset losses. They…