Do you remember losing a customer for the first time? Or a time when losing a customer really stung?
I recently conversed with a business owner of a new membership. She had just had her first cancel. It unsettled her.
Even so, she asked for feedback to gather the reason why.
The member was overwhelmed because they were involved in too many things. So, the member decided to cut back on some things they were doing. Which unfortunately included this membership.
She wondered was there something immediate to do with the feedback. As a result of the feedback, should she make changes to the membership to counteract the risk that others who might also be overwhelmed.
I responded that firsts of anything are hard.
Acknowledge your feelings around it. Grieve. But decide how much time and energy to put on this one event.
Great that you got feedback. But don’t agonize about it because it might not be anything you did or can correct. The decision to cancel the membership is not in your sphere of control, it’s in theirs.
Focus on those that remain.
Survey current members before jumping to make any changes. The other members might be very satisfied. You might just end up breaking things fixing problem others don’t have.
In fact, set up processes in your membership where you survey people on a periodic basis or at specific milestones.
A regular pipeline of feedback can provide great insight. It can help guide you in making ongoing changes that will foster retention. Repeated patterns will come up.
There will also be those outliers that your intuition says you need to look at too.
It’s just that with a feedback process, it will become regular practice. Negative feedback will not seem like an event that blindsides you. It will be a information you act on.
It will inform your retention strategy and minimize the impact of losing a customer from tie to time.
Thoughts?
