4 Most Common Reasons for Subscriber Churn

Subscriber churn can seriously harm a business’ profitability and success. Unhappy customers who unsubscribe from a service not only represent lost revenue, but may also become powerful voices who dissuade others from using the business. Businesses must eliminate churn as much as possible to be successful. Below are the four most common reasons for subscriber churn.

1. Waiting to Resolve Problems

The most common reason for customer churn is that businesses often wait until the customer wants to unsubscribe before addressing problems. When the business finally pays attention to the customer’s needs, it’s too late.

To avoid this problem, businesses should develop a strong rapport with each new subscriber by doing the following:

• Send a welcome email and ask the customer to fill out a survey or answer a question to find out more about what the customer needs.
• Maintain contact with the customer through a newsletter or social media page, providing him or her with extra resources and services free of charge.
• Respond quickly to any complaints or problems via email, phone or social media.

2. Customer Isn’t Sold on the Service

Sometimes customers subscribe to a service on a limited trial basis in order to learn more about the company and the experience the service provides. They may be curious about a service, but not convinced it’s really for them. If customers are not quickly convinced of the service’s value, they’re more likely to unsubscribe.

Give the customer a first impression he or she won’t easily forget. For example, provide new subscribers with a special offer as a thank you for subscribing or send them a personal welcome message.

3. Business Has No Competitive Advantage

If a business isn’t significantly better than its competitors in some way, customers will leave the second a competitor offers a lower rate.

Rather than focusing on price points, businesses should focus on their benefits to consumers. If they demonstrate that they, and only they, have certain skills or provide certain programs, subscribers will be more inclined to stick around.

4. Subscribers Don’t Know How to Use the Service

Subscribers may be unaware of some of the unique benefits of a service or have a hard time navigating the business’ website. These problems make the service itself seem useless or frustrating, which makes subscribers more likely to give up and unsubscribe.

Websites should have an easy-to-find FAQ and support page for customers. Additionally, businesses should link to the FAQ and support pages in email updates and provide new subscribers with short tutorials on how to use the service.

Subscriber churn is frustrating and devastating to businesses. The biggest reasons for subscriber churn boil down to subscribers being unhappy with or not seeing the value in the service. By developing rapport with customers and providing them with extra value, businesses can significantly reduce churn rates and raise their profitability.

Want a step-by-step strategy to decrease involuntary churn? Our Retry Strategy guide teaches you exactly how to use data like decline codes to reduce churn and increase your CLV: