So, you have regular paying customers, and they’re using it. You are already scared of churn.
Churn is the single best reason that keeps SaaS companies and their founders awake at night. Isn’t it?
Well, I had some sleepless nights too and I still worry about it.
This blog is mostly to share my experience and how I reduced our churn.
But before that, if you haven’t read this article & this podcast— bookmark and read/listen to it later. It’s useful.
Now the story time….
At one point in time, I was solely responsible for activation and sales. I was bringing leads left and right without thinking about what happens after.
We were growing 40% MoM, and I was just busy closing.
Then, the reality hit us. Our normal churn was less than 2.6%, (it’s low due to best product & support) and it increased it up to 6.4%. For some, it might be still normal but definitely not for us.
Hence, I made a plan and implemented it right away. This is probably the best strategy you could implement earlier on so that you don’t face it like I did.
So, what did I do?
I over-educated my prospects & customers – How?
I overeducated my prospects and customers with the following tactics I applied:
1 – Increased the number of helpdesk articles
Simply, I answered more FAQs question by checking the most common questions in our chat support.
2 – Added the help widget in-app
We used our best help docs and shared it in-app. We already give the best support.
3 – Gave 3 free calls to everyone who opted to participate in the sales process
I gave one onboarding, one UX review, and one metrics call for free.
You wanna know the results of adding video to my emails? I went from 64% open rate to 81.25%, 8% click rate to 64% click rate, and 8.4% open to response rate to 15% response rate.
4 – Added 1 free onboarding webinar for everyone to join every week
5 – Made 16 videos “how to videos” so we can always refer users to it and added it our chrome experience builder.
The videos are the common use-cases, and questions people need to know if they need some help.
6 – Sent personalized “thank you postcards”
Okay, this is not education but helped me build relationships post-sale.
7 – Created an amazing onboarding
We already had that since we’re an onboarding tool, but we further bolstered it.
You can see our Userpilot onboarding experience flow here.
8 – Added videos in my sales emails and pushed the prospects to the webinars or personalized onboarding
Yes, you can send prospects to the webinars
I sent personalized video emails to Product Qualified Leads, and made sure to move them further to the funnel. You can find out about Product Qualified Leads here.
This image is below without the video. It’s the same email and the subject line.
Without the video
with the video
9 – Made the post-sales and success videos to show them the value, and how they got the ROI with Userpilot
I showed my users how they’re getting success post going live with Userpilot.
10 – Pushed prospects and customers to get through our Product Adoption School
We made this 5 lessons product adoption school to prepare our prospects and customers how to use our software and how to find gaps in their onboarding.
In short, other than those credit card failures, onboarding emails, and similar tactics. I made sure that my audience is educated, they realize the value of the app, and can easily access it with whatever form they want to learn the software such as in-app, helpdesk, videos, chat, personalized calls, and by themselves.
I made it work.
The result? We reduced 6.4% churn back 2%.
Educate your users. Adapt to your users’ way of learning. Show the value via education.