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