Tracking churn metrics shows you the damage. Preventing churn requires understanding why customers leave and fixing those problems before they do.

Metrics tell you if retention is working. To actually reduce churn, focus on:

• Understanding customers’ in-app behavior to inform product development

• Building relationships with at-risk and loyal customers to multiply the value you provide

• Offering an unparalleled customer experience with your product and team at each step

When customers rely on your product daily to hit their goals, they don't churn.

We asked Corrina Owens, Chief Evangelist Officer at purple cork, which relationship-building tactics actually reduce churn. To find out, we sat down with Corrina Owens, Chief Evangelist Officer, purple cork. Here’s what she had to say.

What is churn in B2B SaaS?

Churn in B2B SaaS is made up of paying users who choose not to renew their subscription for your product or service within a defined time frame.

For example, when a customer with a yearly contract decides not to sign a new one once the initial twelve months are up.

Churn rate doesn't include downgrades or package changes—those fall under net revenue retention. Instead, it focuses on existing customers who unsubscribe within a specific time period, translating to revenue loss.

Every business experiences churn. High churn rates signal bigger problems. For example, your sales team might be closing poor-fit customers, which points to an issue with pipeline generation. Left unaddressed, high churn damages retention, revenue, and reputation. It also increases pipeline anxiety.

Reducing churn helps your sales team, your revenue, and your customers.

That’s why it’s so important to understand why they’re churning and what you can do to keep them around longer.

3 reasons customers churn

The current economic downturn drives churn as companies cut costs. But it’s not the only one. Poor customer experience and inadequate product education both drive users away.

1. At-risk customers no longer find your product valuable

Customers stop seeing value in a product when they either don’t use it effectively or when they only use it to solve one or two of specific problems.

This happens when your product adds features but you don't teach customers how to use them.

When your champion leaves and their replacement doesn't know your product well, usage drops. The new user doesn't see the value.

2. Customers can’t explain your tool’s value to their executives

If you don't communicate your product's value clearly, customers can't explain its benefits to their CFO or budget owners.

They'll start thinking competitors offer more value.

3. You’re bringing in the wrong users

Closing poor-fit accounts increases churn because these customers eventually realize your tool doesn't solve their problems.

This happens when sales reps don't know who the ideal buyer is or don't understand their target user's real pain points and goals.

Fix this by improving your sales enablement process. Also give reps strong B2B prospecting tools to target and close the right customers.

8 ways to prevent churn

The experience customers have with your product and customer success team drives churn reduction. If they hit bugs repeatedly and get poor responses to feedback, they'll switch to a competitor.

Improve their experience by:

• Proactively sourcing customer feedback to create a product users love

• Building relationships with customers to double the value you offer

Here's what Corrina recommends:

1. Multiply the value you offer customers

First, identify at-risk accounts and the people in those organizations who find the most value in your tool.

“Identify who was the signer initially, though that person may not even be there anymore, and who are the other champions, such as individual contributors you may have overlooked initially,” explains Corrina Owens.

As you do so, reach out to the champions to learn about their goals and struggles. “Maybe they’re up for promotion or maybe they’re doing multiple jobs and now they’re owning outbound sales reps and they’re owning like a portion of a marketing function,” adds Corrina.

Run value engineering exercises that compare at-risk customer data with loyal customer data. This reveals new ways they could use your tool.

Corrina explains:

Understand what champions struggle with, then show them how your product solves those problems.

2. Talk to loyal customers

Reach out to your loyal customer base to ask them two simple questions:

• Why did they buy your product?

• How are they using it?

You'll get a list of unique ways existing customers use your tool. The answers also remind you of your product's value and give you real examples to share with at-risk customers.

As Corrina notes, “It's important to find out what valuable thing you're delivering to your client, simplify it, and then deliver it consistently. If you're not talking to your customers multiple times a week, your company's doing something wrong.”

3. Make it easy for your customers to pitch your product to executives

“Companies need to make sure they have a narrative to help their customers pitch to their executive team, why their tool is the tool to use and why the other [competing] one doesn’t even stand a chance,” says Corrina.

This matters now as CFOs cutting budgets question whether they need each piece of software.

Your customers should be able to explain your tool's value proposition—why it's irreplaceable and why competitors fall short.

To make this happen:

• Know your tool’s value proposition yourself

Regularly talking to your best customers helps you sharpen your value proposition.

• Continue educating current customers about your product’s value throughout the customer journey

This keeps your product's unique value clear in your customers' minds.

4. Adapt your product to boost customer experience

Gather customer feedback regularly to:

• Resolve product bugs and weaknesses

• Improve customer outcomes by adding features they actually need

Customers benefit more from your product. Your NPS improves as users see you value their feedback and act on it.

5. Review first-party data to understand product usage in real-time

Regularly review your product and marketing data to learn how customers are using your tool — including what they’re struggling with.

Use the data to inform product development, customer education, retention, and marketing strategies.

6. Focus on building peer-to-peer relationships with customers

Customer engagement is essential with your point of contact, the C-suite at a paying account, and people throughout the organization.

Corrina calls this “peer-to-peer matching.” It strengthens customer relationships and improves retention. It also reveals how customers use your tool and what's changing in their organization.

It also helps you spot churn signals early.

An ABM marketer should own the peer-to-peer program. They tell customer support who to engage with and what information to gather.

Asking for users’ feedback is another effective way to improve customer relationships. Corrina shares:

7. Target the warmest leads to bring in best-fit customers

Converting best-fit customers increases retention.

Pipeline generation tools, like UserGems, assist with this in particular. It tracks buyer job changes, automatically identifying alumni customers, people who used your tool in a previous role, when they join new organizations.

Reaching out to these alumni users helps reps close best-fit deals and reduce churn. Targeting and converting previous champions reduces the length of sales cycles by 12% while doubling win rates. This increases customer lifetime value and sales rep productivity.

8. Source feedback from churned customers

You can't save every customer. Learn from churned customers by asking:

• What stopped you from renewing your subscription?

• What could we have done to stop you from leaving?

• What made you choose to try another tool?

This churn analysis shows you what to fix in your product and how to retain similar customers.

Lower your churn rate with better pipeline generation

Churn reduction comes down to building better relationships with users.

Reach out to champions at target accounts to learn about their goals and how they’re using your tool. Then identify ways to help them hit their targets.

At the same time, study customer behavior in your app and on your website. Understand which features people use the most, where they struggle, and what content they consume. Use the data you gather to fuel product development and identify ways you can multiply the value your tool offers.

Target and close best-fit deals. Use UserGems to identify warm leads that match your ideal buyer profile.

Companies like Gong, Cobalt, and Lattice use UserGems to track buyer signals, target warm leads, and convert them into pipeline. Book a free demo today to learn how UserGems can help you retain customers better.