Churn is essentially you loosing customers. it can happen for any number of reasons over time, some of it might be directly in your control (like delivering late, or poor products) some of it might be completely out of your control. (such as industry trends, material prices) So how can Sales and Marketing work together to keep customers onboard?

The Sales team’s main focus in life is getting in new customers, a lot of time and effort goes into finding and acquiring customers and nothing is more frustrating then seeing this effort go to waste. For the marketing team it’s all about trying to keep those relationships strong at arms length.

Stop Selling

One of the first things to do is to move that customer off of your sales lists and into your customer list. Nothing is more annoying to a new customer when they see mere weeks after signing up/ buying your product that this week you have a 33% sale on. The marketing messages should switch to being more informative and less salesy.

Review Regularly

Generally speaking when a customer is leaving, it’s too late to do anything about it, and even if you do it shall cost you significantly more than if you stopped the rot at its source. Having regular updates and feedback from your customers is a great tool for any business. even just once a year and although it may be true that customers may forget the 99 good things you do and remember that 1 bad thing you did, it gives them a chance to air any grievances.

Tell Them About Your Victories

On those 99 times you got it right, it never hurts to remind people that you’ve done what they are paying for! If there’s some way you can send an automated report or maybe a monthly overview this can be a great tool in reducing churn. “Hey Emily, did you know you ordered 6 cakes from us this month all of which were delivered on time? You’ve been our customer for 10 years and are still paying the same low prices.” This is something many people might take for granted that could be making you more money.

Let’s Talk About Those Flaws

The number one reason customers churn is that the product or service does not live up to their expectation. Hopefully you are capturing this and able to solve the issue before a customer walks. We all know that ”The customer is ALWAYS right” is not strictly true but where someone might be in danger of falling off, or has been a bit quiet this is a good opportunity for that original sales person to reach back out.