— a service that lets businesses and individuals track what’s being said about them online — struggled with churn. As their customer base grew from hundreds to over 200,000, they realized their current efforts were unsustainable.
The Research
Mention based their optimization on a few facts.
For starters, they knew that paid and free trial members were more valuable than users with a free plan. They also knew that the automated marketing emails sent to free trial users were highly valuable, and that feature activation during free trial was a huge driver of conversion and retention. Having
for customer support, Mention segmented their users according to membership type, prioritizing the help requests of more valuable users. They also implemented a new streamlined system for assigning support tickets, as depicted below:
Handling support requests in batches every four hours meant more time to focus on other, equally important goals—such as weekly “support meet product” meetings in which the company used customer feedback to improve product and support tools.
These changes alone meant around 50% less time spent on support, as well as higher levels of customer satisfaction for both free trial and paid users.
Since they already knew how much free trial users valued Mention’s automated marketing emails, they leveraged them to encourage feature activation—a valuable customer behavior. Paying customers began receiving “Pro Tips” like the one below, which showcased popular features:
Finally, they created a “use-case Master Class”—a webinar that demonstrated the service’s potential and instructed new customers in how to effective use Mention’s features, with concrete examples from actual clients:
Through a combination of the above efforts, Mention as able to lower churn by 22% in a single month—well in advance of their 3 month goal.
Why Did This Happen?
Based on data and user feedback from previous efforts, Mention already had a good idea of what their customers responded to. Using this information, they were able to craft a strong communication plan that ultimately made their service more valuable for customers—giving them a reason to stick around.
Actionable Advice
Think of ways you can extend successful campaigns—such as Mention’s automated email campaign for free trial users—to deliver value tomoreof your user base.
Don’t expect users to automatically “get” the value of your service. Show them with tips, guides, and success stories.