Do You Know Why Your Customers Are Leaving?

By Chris Truitt

Many of us think of business as a complex organism with many moving parts. While this is certainly true, business concepts can be simplified to two main objectives, Customer Acquisition and Retention. Acquiring customers isn't easy and can often be a costly endeavor. Retaining customers is often a matter of listening to your customer's concerns, understanding their needs and putting your business in a position to meet these needs.

Forward Thinking

This is perhaps one of the most over used terms, and we're only half way through the year. I personally don't know of another way to think. But, before we plan for the future, we must live in the present and deal with the problems of today. This is not shortsighted. Thinking forwardly without dealing with the issues right in front of you would be shortsighted.

Act on Customer Feedback

An important component of forward thinking is strategy. Your strategy for improving your business has to be based on an clear understanding of what is working, what is not working and what needs to be improved. But how can business leaders definitively know and quantify the things that aren't working? The answer to this, is customer feedback. Consider surveying existing customers and customers that request to cancel. Retention managers should immediately know the top reasons for customer cancellations at any time. This is valuable data and insight to your customer's thinking that can be applied to modify your retention efforts, and to improve your business processes.

Chris Truitt is an Email Deliverability Manager with over 11 years of experience. During this time, Chris has consulted with many clients, large and small on best practices and provided strategic guidance on improving inbox placement. His objective is to help businesses on realizing their full marketing potential by first understanding the customer’s needs and interests and structuring alignment of the marketing campaign to meet those needs. As a pragmatist, Chris has an analytical, result oriented approach to business. He believes a dive into data and historical performance can lead us to making well informed decisions. In his new role he has had an opportunity to offer insight to executive leaders and contributed to key decisions and business strategy. Chris resides in Raleigh, North Carolina where he lives with his wife and their two sons.

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