The Fear of Churn

It’s the scariest time of the year – Q4! Will your CS team end the year smiling or sobbing?

Here at ChurnZero, we fear churn. And when you fear churn, you fight churn. In honor of Halloween, we asked our own Customer Success team to dig deep into their most frightful memories of customer churn and tell us:

Which churn monster do you fear most and why?

And then we had a costume contest!

UNLUCKY

Peter chose Unlucky so he could wear cat ears. But also, what do you do when the customer is trying so hard – and they mean well – but everything keeps going wrong? Is it Karma? Are they cursed? It can feel so hard to resolve all the issues, but when you finally do, it’s glorious!

Peter Watt, Team Lead, Implementation and Support

CHAMPIONLESS  

Naomi finds the lack of a champion downright frightening. Why the fear? It’s distressing when you know the customer is a great fit for your product, they just don’t have a strong or consistent person to lead the charge. There is so much potential, if only they would own it!

Naomi Aiken, Team Lead, Customer Success

GHOSTED

Bora chose Ghosted because she looks great in a cape and her favorite color is purple. Win-win. She now wears this to our office daily. MIA customers are a fun challenge for Bora—she has an arsenal of tactics to creatively get their attention and bring them back from the dead.

Bora Lee, Team Lead, Customer Success Operations

STUCK

Morgan gets chills when thinking about Stuck because, being on the Implementation team, she is all too familiar with customers getting stuck in the process. It can be a challenging situation, but also a rewarding one when you can help a customer get out of the rut! And she wanted to impress us all with her arts and crafts skills by making a fence out of spray-painted cardboard.

Morgan Carson, Implementation Specialist

CHEATER

There is nothing more shocking and horrifying than a Cheater, says Chase. In life and in CS. Sometimes you have a gut feeling that a customer is being courted by one of your competitors, but other times it’s a complete shock as your competitor is often spouting false information to win the deal and hit their quota. And a huge bummer! Both to you in the short-term and your valued customer in the long-term.

Chase Tinkham, Customer Success Manager

ACQUIRED

An unknown situation is quite eerie at times, says Lucas. And when a customer is acquired you often don’t know how it will affect your relationship with them. Will it lead to upsell? Will it lead to churn? Talk about losing sleep…

Lucas Farley, Customer Success Manager

DISENGAGED

Abby had a Gumby costume laying around so this was a great opportunity to put it to use again. She seeks regular opportunities to wear it. Abby fears a disengaged customer because she knows the great things that can be accomplished when a customer puts in the work (please please!). When a disengaged customer won’t talk to her she likes to…wait, are you still there? Hello? Hello? Oh, the horror!

Abby Hammer, Chief Customer Officer

KNOW IT ALL

No one likes working with a smarty-pants who thinks they know more than you. Bri finds a Know it All quite ghastly, but not impossible. As a CSM we must approach the customer with special care, and sometimes soothe their ego, to win them over.

Bri Adams, Customer Success Manager

MANIC

Scott chose Manic because, as part of our Support team, he knows the haunting feeling of an all-over-the-place customer who you need to reel in. It’s going to be okay. Scott is here to help.

Scott Polidoro, Customer Support Representative 

SLACKER

Being on the implementation team, Akoye feels the haunting chills of slackers past. You know the feeling, when you are giving the customer all the information (and encouragement!) to succeed, you just need them to roll out of bed and get to work.

Akoye Gamory, Implementation Specialist 

ABANDONED

Sometimes a customer is just… lost. And Matt knows what to do! As part of our support team, he battles this monstrous beast with his quick wit, friendliness, and TLC approach. This customer needs love, and Matt is there with open arms.

Matt Schlosser, Technical Customer Support Representative

And in case you were wondering who won the churn monster costume contest…it was our Implementation and Support Team Lead, Peter Watt, who dressed up as the Unlucky churn monster. How very lucky for him! 😉

To learn more about the churn monsters that might be in your closet, download our churn monster playbook, which can be your definitive guide in fighting customer churn.

---

Customer Success Around the Web

• How to Create and Scale a Global Customer Success Team– Learn how you should invest in a growing Customer Success team. 
• How these Freemium SaaS Companies are Redefining Customer Success– See how three freemium SaaS companies approach free user Customer Success.
• SaaS Customer Success: How to Delight Your Customers and Reduce Churn – Find out why the secret to CS is in your marketing strategy and after sales service delivery.