Will Kelly explains why chasing new customers masks a bigger problem: hidden churn. Adding 100 customers while losing 40 looks like growth, but it's a leak. He argues you need to measure why people actually leave, fix those reasons, and keep the ones you have.
For years, I was obsessed with getting customers. How many leads came in? How many estimates did we send? What's our close rate? How quickly can we grow? Those things still matter, but eventually you realize a customer you already have can become more valuable than constantly replacing customers who leave. And churn hides inside growth. If you're adding 100 customers while losing 40, you can look at the 60 you gained and feel great, but those 40 are telling you something. Maybe it's quality, maybe it's communication, maybe pricing, maybe expectations. Maybe the customer simply wasn't a good fit. But if you don't know why they're leaving, growth can hide the problem for too long. That is something that we are trying to get better at. We want better visibility into why customers cancel. If it's a quality problem, we need accountability. If it's a communication problem, we need to fix the process. If it's something outside of our control, that's different. But I don't want us guessing, and neither should you, because you can't fix a problem you aren't willing to measure.
