6 ms·
> Even these users churned after a short time. Why is that? We do not really know! You need to know this, and knowing it is as easy as asking. I e-mail every
by dangrossman 10y ago
> Even these users churned after a short time. Why is that? We do not really know!
You need to know this, and knowing it is as easy as asking.
I e-mail every single person that cancels their subscription, and ask why they cancelled today and what we could have done to better serve them. I don't measure the response rate, but I write every mail personally and read every response, so I can tell you it's well over 50%.
The responses to these e-mails are invaluable. They're how you learn why people signed up, what pain points they experienced using your product, what problems they have that your product didn't solve well, and what competitors they're coming from or leaving to.
If there's some glaring issue with your ad campaign ("I thought I was signing up for a free antivirus program because your ad said it made my files secure" or "No hablo ingles") you'd probably have learned it well before spending €20K through those exit emails.
- gist 10y agoI am curious how you have used the information to change your product to reduce the churn? What are the results? How would you scale this if you had a larger customer based? (Separately I am always amazed at how larger companies do a lame attempt at the same thing by expecting me to fill out a long survey with simplistic categories after a luxury purchase where they could clearly afford to give the person touch and show actual interest in my answers).
- bduerst 10y agoI can't speak for them, but I've worked with exit survey data that has either confirmed what we knew about some market segments we weren't going after, or highlighted some unforeseen pain points in the product that we later scheduled to fix. And you're right - the longer the customer survey, the less genuine the company is in actually hearing what you have to say.
- AlBentley 10y agoOur experience when trying this approach is 90% reply with 'lack of time' which is not the true reason but basically means the product didn't solve a major problem for them.
- dangrossman 10y agoNot necessarily. I solved most "lack of time" issues by improving onboarding. People thought they didn't have the time because the setup steps seemed daunting or confusing, so they put them off indefinitely. Improving the "first login" experience, moving to a more walkthrough/wizard-based setup (only one thing to do on the screen at a time), and building more 3rd-party integrations that eliminated technical work allowed me to retain more customers. I was solving their problem -- once they got past the hurdle of starting to use the product.
- Waterluvian 10y agoAbsolutely. I'm a picky user who will delete your app in 30 seconds if the setup path isn't obvious and reliable.
- blake8086 10y agoI think you're probably just a reasonable user.
- jakobegger 10y agoYes. If a company doesn't even manage to optimise the onboarding experience, it's unlikely that they optimise anything.
- montibbalt 10y agoIt depends on your audience as well (surprise, you need to understand who will be using your product). What we've found through AB testing with the game I work on is that our best (read: highest-value) players are very experienced with this type of app even if they're not tech savvy, and a tutorial is a nearly meaningless roadblock to them because they already know.
- AlBentley 10y agoTo clarify what I mean by "doesn't solve major problem": it actually might solve a major problem for them but due to shit messaging/ UX/ onboarding/ trust/ bugs/ whatever they haven't realised it. So you are correct but all those things I just consider to be part of the product as a whole.