By: Allbusiness
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1. Assess the Situation

Ask yourself what their reasons are for leaving. Is your service or product frustrating or difficult to use? Is it too expensive?Then, create an approach to address the most common concerns. You can learn a lot from a simple, honest conversation or email exchange with a customer who is leaving. —Volkan Okay Yazici, Stonexchange

2. Pick Up the Phone

In my businesses, I’ve found that picking up the phone and calling clients goes a very long way–it trumps email any day of the week. Ask people how things are going, what you can do to help, and what problem areas they have that need your attention. You’ll learn so much about your product offering and company in a very short period of time, and customers will really appreciate the one-on-one attention. —Alex

3. Check Your Data

Look at your available data to see when, where, and why the decline happened so you can pinpoint a particular set of actions or communications that put customers off.—Angela Ruth, Due

4. Find Out if It’s a Product, Customer Service, or Sales Problem

Are you attracting the wrong types of customers? Are you unable to retain good customers because your product inadequately meets their needs? Before you start interrogating customers about why they are abandoning ship, find out first if this is an internal problem you can solve quietly. —Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

5. Reward Customers for Completing Exit Interviews

Incentivize past customers to complete exit interviews or surveys by offering gift cards or raffle entries in exchange. When someone makes a decision to leave, it’s usually final. But figuring out why they left and fixing the problem can prevent other customers from leaving. —Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

6. Survey, Discuss, and Take Action

Use periodic customer satisfaction surveys and discussions to find the reasons behind your churn rates. Hire account managers that have experience with account/crisis management.—Deepti Sharma Kapur, FoodtoEat 

7. Study Trends

Using analytics and other data sources, look for trends to determine the cause. Oftentimes, numbers will share the story behind the decrease in customer retention. Then perform an audit of your current processes, products, and services to identify how you can improve. —Marcela De Vivo, Brilliance

8. Turn Off Marketing Spend

While it’s true that you should talk to customers to understand why they’re leaving, there’s a step I’d probably take before that, which is to dial down or turn off marketing spend. Most likely, you’re spending with a certain customer lifetime value calculation, and now that’s changing. So don’t overspend. —Fan Bi, Blank Label

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By: YEC

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