Why Retention Stats Often Give You Zero Insight Into the Customer Experience

Not long ago, I was sitting in a meeting discussing the profit-and-loss (P&L) statement for one of our new product lines. The P&L manager was running through the key performance indicators (KPIs), and we got to the churn metric, when she extolled, “Churn is holding flat, so we are looking OK on that front.” Everyone in the room nodded their heads, and then we started to move on to other parts of the agenda. At that moment, I internally debated whether to let the comment go or to interject. I just couldn’t help myself.