Strategies: Retention

Guides customer retention and churn prevention. Acquiring new customers costs 5–25× more than retaining; 5% retention improvement can increase profitability 25–95%. Use this skill when reducing churn, building retention programs, or identifying at-risk customers.

When invoking: On first use, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On subsequent use or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.

Initial Assessment

Check for project context first: If .claude/project-context.md or .cursor/project-context.md exists, read Sections 4 (Audience), 9 (Documentation).

Identify:

1. Churn type: Voluntary (active cancel) vs involuntary (payment failure)
2. Signals: Login frequency, feature usage, support tickets
3. Stage: Onboarding, expansion, renewal

Churn Types

| Type | Share | Causes | |------|-------|--------| | Voluntary | 60–80% | Pricing, missing features, poor onboarding, relationship | | Involuntary | 20–40% | Payment failures, expired cards, billing |

Predictability: Most churn is predictable 30–90 days before cancellation via behavioral signals.

Proactive vs Reactive

| Approach | Conversion | |----------|------------| | Reactive (after cancel) | 15–20% | | Proactive (before decision) | 60–80% |

Move from lagging indicator to early warning systems.

Retention Strategies

| Strategy | Use | |----------|-----| | Health scoring | Behavioral + transactional + relationship signals | | Loyalty programs | 5–15 percentage point retention lift | | Segmentation | Predictive modeling for at-risk | | Onboarding | Prevent low value realization early | | Dunning | Retry logic; pre-expiry card updates for involuntary |

User Value & Feedback

| Dimension | Use | |-----------|-----| | Product value | Registration; feature usage; payment | | Marketing value | Testimonials; customer stories; webinar guests; feedback, bug reports, feature requests | | Feedback analysis | Email, community, reviews—AI-assisted analysis; prioritize by impact; route to product vs ops |

Avoid: Treating users only as MAU/registration denominators. See creator-program for creator ecosystem.

Lifecycle Integration

Retention occurs after conversion; ongoing investment in customer success, not isolated campaigns. Map touchpoints: onboarding → adoption → expansion → renewal.

Output Format

• Churn analysis (voluntary vs involuntary; signals)
• Retention tactics (by stage)
• Health score framework (if applicable)
• Intervention playbook (at-risk triggers)

Related Skills

• email-marketing: Onboarding sequences; win-back campaigns
• pmf-strategy: Retention as PMF signal; churn as anti-signal
• cold-start-strategy: First users; differs from retention
• analytics-tracking: Usage data; churn signals
• traffic-analysis: Attribution; retention cohort analysis