The SaaS Customer Retention Roundup​

Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution.

– Rick Tate

Last week, we shared some of our favorite articles discussing the numerous complexities of SaaS customer success. For this week’s roundup, we thought we’d take the concepts discussed in those articles a step further and dig into the topic of SaaS customer retention. What’s more important, customer acquisition or retention? What does it take to really retain customers? Does the process vary from customer to customer? These articles will answer all of these questions and more! Let’s get started…

Customer Retention is the New Conversion

First up is Intercom co-founder Des Traynor with a fantastic introduction to the subscription business model and its various implications. Traynor points out that seemingly overnight, buying software has gone out of style, and software subscriptions have become the new norm. As a result, customer retention has become the industry’s new “conversion”, and this model requires company’s to re-sell to clients every day. The benefits of the subscription model are well-worth the complexities that accompany them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Traynor shares his firm belief in the subscription model and offers his best advice for navigating the choppy seas of SaaS customer retention.

The old world SaaS model was basically all about sign up and convert. The new SaaS model is subscription revenue-driven, which begs the question: what is a conversion today? After all, we don’t buy software these days; we subscribe to it.

– Des Traynor

Customer Retention Vs. Customer Acquisition: The Ultimate Growth Showdown

ChurnBuster‘s Kristen DeCosta weighs in on one of the hottest debates in SaaS. Should founders focus more on customer acquisition or customer retention? Admitting that the answer is complex and relatively open to personal interpretation, DeCosta does her best to break down the two sides of this coin in a way that can really help founders achieve the growth, security, and success they’re looking for. Stating that both acquisition and retention are important in their own ways, DeCosta recommends that before you push hard to bring in as many new customers as possible, you should ask yourself if you’ve built up the foundation to retain them.

You aren’t going to be able to retain customers that are a bad fit in the first place. Try selling video marketing software to someone that thinks you’re a video marketing agency. Hint. You won’t get very far.

– Kristen DeCosta

Are Customer Retention Benchmarks Increasing Your Churn?

Are customer retention benchmarks increasing your churn? According to HubSpot‘s Remen Okoruwa, they might be! While benchmarks satisfy our curiosity and feed competitive drive, Okoruwa warns that this need to compare has the potential to harm your company. There are many mistakes customer success and growth leaders often make when using external retention benchmarks, and Okoruwa believes that there are always opportunities to improve performance when reducing churn. Use benchmarks, trust benchmarks and compare benchmarks. But don’t forget to take an active role, blaze your own trail and define your own destiny.

Benchmarks aren’t destiny. Exceptional companies don’t let their competitors define success for them – they figure it out for themselves.

– Remen Okoruwa

5 Sneaky Reasons You’re Losing Customers (despite your best intentions)

ChartMogul enlisted ChurnBuster‘s Kristen DeCosta to shed light on some of the SaaS churn pitfalls that many founders are unaware of. Condensed into a list of five sneaky reasons for churn, DeCosta doesn’t mince words when it comes to the dangers of passive churn. But she doesn’t outline these risks just to leave readers worried and confused. Rather, DeCosta is sure to arm readers with the solution to each of the problems mentioned within, making this a one-stop-shop for getting on top of your passive churn today.

It’s common for about 40% of churn to be caused by payment failures. That’s 40% of churn that didn’t need to happen. 40% of churn that could have been recovered. And 40% of churn that’s happening passively, despite your best intentions.

– Kristen DeCosta

6 Customer Retention Strategies That Keep Customers Coming Back

TheNextWeb‘s Sam Makad took the ChurnZero blog to show that in addition to being a well-respected marketing consultant, he’s quite the customer retention expert as well. Pairing his profound knowledge with a strong desire to help others, Makad offered up a list of his six most powerful customer retention strategies, complete with tips on how to implement them in a way that’s truly unique to you.

It goes without saying that acts of kindness can boost loyalty amongst your customers. They tend to create a certain level of obligation in the person who tries, almost instinctively, to return the favor.

– Sam Makad

Happy reading!

Thanks so much for joining us for another SaaS roundup. We hope to see you here again next Monday!