

CHURN FM
Andrew Michael
CHURN FM is the podcast for subscription economy pros. Every Wednesday we hear how the world’s fastest growing companies are tackling churn and using retention & engagement to fuel their growth.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 22, 2021 • 31min
EP 145 | Sonciary Pérez (Quala) - Engagement is not always a clear prediction of retention
Today on the show we have Sonciary Pérez , co-founder of Quala.In this episode, Sonciary explains what exactly is Frontline Intelligence, and how Quala helps Customer Success practitioners to be seen as customer intelligence leaders that help drive growth within an organization.We also discussed what you need to look out for when building a Customer Success team from the get-go, why Quala’s Product Marketing team strategically comes from Sales and Customer Experience, and finally shares why their highly engaged customers at Promoboxx churned. As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Dec 15, 2021 • 34min
EP 144 | Kevan Lee (Oyster HR) - How and why churn and retention differs at Buffer, Polly, and Oyster HR.
Today on the show we have Kevan Lee, Head of Marketing at Oyster HR.In this episode, we talked about Kevin’s experience with churn and retention at Buffer, Polly, and Oyster HR, and how the main reasons for churn differed at each company due to their business models and customer segments, and we then discussed the role marketing played in each case to reduce churn.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Dec 8, 2021 • 37min
EP 143 | Lou Rosenfeld - How Rosenfeld Media built an engaged community driving long term retention for their business
Today on the show we have Louis Rosenfeld, publisher and founder at Rosenfeld media.In this episode, we talked about what information architecture is and how it led to the formation of Rosenfeld Media, how the UX Design space is evolving, and the importance of understanding your customers' needs when building out your product’s information architecture. We also discussed Lou’s plans to introduce Memberships and Subscriptions at Rosenfeld Media and how introducing Attendee Cohorts at their conferences, increased retention, and engagement of their community. As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Dec 1, 2021 • 41min
EP 142 | Dave Jackson (TheCustomer.Co) The 7 principles of Customer Success
Today on the show we have Dave Jackson, founder, and CEO of TheCustomer.Co, and author of the book Customer-led growth. In this episode, we talked about customer success as a company-wide capability, the motivation behind his recent book Customer-led growth, and Dave explains why you should purposefully design your organization around customer value.We also discussed why you should screw best practices, and dove into the 7 principles of customer success to deliver maximum customer value. As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Nov 24, 2021 • 38min
EP 141 | Ryan Glasgow (Sprig) - Why churn and retention always comes back to your user onboarding experience and how to improve it
Today on the show we have Ryan Glasgow, CEO and founder of Sprig.In this episode, we talked about the pros and cons of the different stages of company growth, how Ryan took his experience at the 0 to 1 stage to build out Sprig and how Sprig solves the tension between user research and the speed at which product teams move today.We also discussed why churn and retention always comes back to user onboarding, how you can determine which action to focus on for your onboarding experience and the considerations to be made between single-player mode and multiplayer mode during onboarding.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Nov 17, 2021 • 40min
EP 140 | Puneet Kataria (CustomerSuccessBox) - The moving pieces of a successful customer success stack.
Today on the show we have Puneet Kataria, founder of CustomerSuccessBox.In this episode, we talked about what made Puneet make the switch from engineering to sales, the importance of selling to the right customers to avoid churn, and we debated whether “customer success” is the right job title for the job. We also discussed the building blocks a customer success team needs, the five different animals of SaaS and the type of customer success model to use for each animal, and finally Puneet dove deep into the moving pieces of a successful customer success stack.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Nov 10, 2021 • 31min
EP 139 | Harini Gokul (AWS) - Baking Customer Success into your company’s DNA from day 1.
Today on the show we have Harini Gokul, Chief Customer Officer at AWS.In this episode, we talked about the challenges of building and scaling customer success teams at companies like Amazon and Microsoft, and how they bake their customers’ customer perspectives into their work, to deliver true value for their customers.We also discussed the importance of being proactive and knowing what your customers might be wanting next, the characteristics and traits Harini looks for when hiring for customer success and why she invites different department colleagues to be part of the hiring process.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Nov 3, 2021 • 29min
EP 138 | Gareth Drabble - How Contentsquare use Health Scoring to predict adoption and retention
Today on the show we have Gareth Drabble, Director of Customer Success, Northern Europe at ContentsquareIn this episode, we talked about what led Gareth to Contentsquare, the recent acquisition of Hotjar, and what it means for Contentsquare, we then talked about how they plan to structure their customer success team as they scale, and what fuels its growth. We also discussed how rushing into a tech touch model wobbled Contentsquare’s retention rates, and dove into how they use health scoring to predict adoption and retention, and how you can replicate the model for your company too. As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Oct 27, 2021 • 37min
EP 137 | Suresh Shankar (Crayon Data) - How to prevent churn with your enterprise customers
Today on the show we have Suresh Sankar, Founder & CEO of Crayon Data.In this episode, Suresh shares how he connects the dots looking back going from an account director to marketing, and then to founder. We then touched on what Crayon data is and how it helps it’s enterprise customers with personalization.We also discussed Crayon data’s process in identifying the gap in the market and the inspiration behind it, their different strategies on how to validate or invalidate markets, and then Suresh shares his views on churn and retention when it comes to enterprise SaaS models.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.Churn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.

Oct 20, 2021 • 43min
EP 136 | Scott Singerman - Inside Mixpanel’s retention driving partnerships programs.
Today on the show we have Scott Singerman, VP of Global Partnerships at Mixpanel. In this episode, we talked about Scott’s role as a VP of Global Partnerships and his responsibilities, how Mixpanel is giving back to the startup community with their Startup Program, but also the benefits a program like this has for any company in general.We then dove into the different partnership categories at Mixpanel, their impact on the business as a whole, and how these partnerships are tied to customer retention.As usual, I'm excited to hear what you think of this episode, and if you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you. You can email me directly on Andrew@churn.fm. Don't forget to follow us on TwitterChurn FM is sponsored by Vitally, the all-in-one Customer Success Platform.