The cost of acquiring a new customer can be five to 10 times the cost of keeping an existing customer, depending on the industry. You already knew that. But while most organizations know why their customers opened the exit door, they devote little effort to understanding what prompted customers to consider the exit door in the first place.

Churn investigation is almost exclusively directed at the tipping point of the customer’s departure. “Why are you leaving us?” or, “Why did you just leave us?” is the resounding query when customers close their accounts or complete a post-service survey. It reminds me of a friend whose wife finally filed for divorce. When I asked him why his wife had left him, he said, “Well, she told me it was because I wouldn’t take out the trash.” The corollary in the business world is the all-too-familiar customer retort: “I left because your prices were too high.”

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