Churn is the opposite of retention — it’s the measure of how many customers (or how much money, in the case of revenue churn) do not renew their business with a particular company.
顧客チャーンとは何ですか？
Customer churn is a vital metric for any subscription business, especially SaaS companies. It’s a measure of how many customers, sometimes referred to in sales shorthand as “logos,” do not renew at the end of their subscription. Occasionally, churn occurs prior to the expiration of the subscription term, but this type of turnover is less frequent because it typically requires breaking terms of a contract. Customer churn can also be thought of as the inverse of customer retention.
チャーンには種類がありますか？
Churn is generally measured in two broad categories — revenue churn, which measures the dollar value of contracts not renewed, and customer churn, which is commonly expressed as the percentage of companies up for renewal that do not extend their contract. Within each of these categories are several more specific views, from the predictable (net vs. gross; churn within company size or industry cohorts) to the nuanced [preventable churn (unhappy customers, inactive users) vs. structural churn (customer went out of business or was acquired)].
How do I calculate revenue churn?
There’s a variety of ways to measure revenue churn. Probably the most commonly used is Net Revenue Retention, which looks at a set period and takes into account changes in account value (i.e. upsells and downsells) during that period. If revenue gained from upsells can offset or exceed revenue lost from downsells and churned customers, the Net Revenue Retention Rate can be greater than 100%, commonly referred to as negative churn. In subscription businesses, especially in SaaS, a Net Revenue Retention Rate of 110% or higher is considered world-class.
顧客チャーンを計算するにはどうすればよいですか？
顧客チャーン率の計算は、思いのほか複雑です。「無料トライアルのユーザーを含める必要があるか？」「月ごとの契約は？」「更新の顧客のみを切り分ける必要はあるか？」など、さまざまなことを考慮する結果、SaaS企業によって「特定の期間に更新しなかった顧客の数」という一見わかりやすい質問への答え方は大きく異なってきます。
チャーンを計算するための競合する式は数多く存在するため、企業が選択する式よりも重要なのは、企業が一貫してベンチマークを行うことです。チャーンは目標が変わり得るKPIです。季節性、プロダクトの変更、競争要因、価格予想、カスタマーサポート、さらにはPRイベントの影響を受ける可能性があります。チャーンの計算式を定期的に変更すると、企業が顧客を失った原因を把握したり、ビジネスに変更を加えたりする能力が妨げられます。そのため、最初に指標を追跡します。
収益チャーンまたは顧客チャーンのどちらを測定する必要がありますか？
Both are important. By comparing revenue churn and customer churn, a business can see if retention is consistent throughout the customer base, or if there’s more churn with small customers (higher customer churn, lower revenue churn) or if large customers tend to be more at-risk (lower customer churn, higher revenue churn). By having multiple ways to measure overall customer health, an organization can prevent over-reliance on one metric, and be more likely to detect issues in the data before they become problematic.
なぜチャーンが重要なのですか？
サブスクリプションソフトウェア企業にとって通常、顧客獲得コストは高いため、あらゆる形式のチャーンはSaaSビジネスにとって非常に重要な指標です。コストが高いあまり、ベンダーが契約の数年後まで獲得コストを回収できないことは珍しくありません。結果として、早期にチャーンが発生すると、会社はその顧客にかけた費用を失うことになります。同様に、チャーンを理解することは、SaaSビジネスのもう1つの基本的な指標である「顧客の生涯価値」を理解するための前提条件です。
顧客チャーンの要因は何ですか？
すべての顧客チャーンを防げるわけではありません。会社が廃業したり買収されたりした場合、その顧客をチャーンから回避させられる可能性はほとんどありません。これは「構造的チャーン」と呼ばれます。構造的チャーンの反対は予防可能なチャーンです。このような場合、企業と意思決定者は、プロダクトまたはサービスを更新するかどうかを決定する際に、いくつかの一貫した基準を検討する傾向があります。検討する可能性があるのは次のような内容です。
Value
What benefits do I get when I use this product? Do I get what I expected when I initially bought?
Usage
How often do I use this product? Is this a mission-critical, daily use application, or is this an infrequent, nice to have?
Relationships
How attached am I to the people behind the product? Is there a strong bond between a customer success team and an internal champion? Do I feel invested in this specific company’s product?
Alternatives
Are there other ways to solve my problem? Would I use them more frequently, or do I have a stronger relationship with an alternative provider?
Recommended reading
The team at OpenView Ventures recently completed a large-scale survey to identify drivers of top-line metrics such as retention. Here’s how a product’s go-to-market approach relates to customer and revenue churn.
How do you build long-term loyalty among your customers? You can start by setting the foundations early. As a starting point, identify high-value actions successful users take in their first 90 days that set them up for continued success and reduce the possibility of churn.
Without strong user retention, your product will fail. Yet product managers consistently ignore it or think it’s just the customer success team’s problem. This is where PMs can take a lesson from growth teams.
Customer churn isn’t the happiest topic to talk about, but it’s definitely something all product teams should care about and track.
As a lagging indicator, the churn rate only lets you look at what has already transpired in your product. However, there are ways to analyze customer lifecycle data and build a churn prediction model so you can get ahead of the churn curve.
