Identifying Key Touchpoints To Improve Retention

Netflix doesn’t wait until month 12 to learn you’re gone. The platform knows by episode 3. B2B SaaS churn works the same way: 71% of cancellation intent surfaces in the first 30 days. Essentially, day 1 - 30 is the verdict window. - Only 28% of users who fail to reach first value inside two weeks renew a year later. - Accounts that activate three core features in month one renew at a 92% clip versus 58% for single-feature tourists (per Gainsight Pulse). - CS teams that run a 30-day “decision audit” see renewal forecast accuracy tighten from around 18% to +/- 7%. Yet most companies schedule the first serious check-in 90 days before renewal, which is LONG after the jury has left the building. Try doing this: 1. Map a Time-to-Impact SLA: first value <14 days, second value <30. 2. Treat early warning signals like pipeline slips. No daily log-ins by day 5? Auto-trigger a guided tour. 3. Escalate risk the same way sales escalates exec involvement. If NPS is < 6 in week three, drop an exec note rather than a generic survey. 4. Push product usage data to CS in hourly feeds, not weekly roll-ups. Retention is the delta between first-month reality and twelfth-month pricing. Nail the former and the latter becomes paperwork. Forecast renewals on behavior you can still change, not anniversaries you can only regret.

Great journey maps start from the intersection of user touchpoints. A customer journey map shows a customer's experiences with your organization, from when they identify a need to whether that need is met. Journey maps are often shown as straight lines with touchpoints explaining a user's challenges. start •—------------>• finish At the heart of this approach is the user, assuming that your product or service is the one they choose to use in their journey. While journey maps help explain the conceptual journey, they often give the wrong impression of how users are trying to solve their problems. In reality, users start from different places, have unique ways of understanding their problems, and often have expectations that your service can't fully meet. Our testing and user research over the years has shown how varied these problem-solving approaches can be. Building a great journey map involves identifying a constellation of touchpoints rather than a single, linear path. Users start from different points and follow various paths, making their journeys complex and varied. These paths intersect to form signals, indicating valuable touchpoints. Users interact with your product or service in many different ways. User journeys are not straightforward and involve multiple touchpoints and interactions…many of which have nothing to do with your company. Here’s how you can create valuable journeys: → Using open-ended questions and a product like Helio, identify key touchpoints, pain points, and decision-making moments within each journey. → Determine the most valuable touchpoints based on the intersection frequency and user feedback. → Create structured lists with closed answer sets and retest with multiple-choice questions to get stronger signals. → Represent these intersections as key touchpoints that indicate where users commonly interact with your product or service. → Focus on these touchpoints for further testing and optimization. Generalizing the linear flow can be practical once you have gone through this process. It helps tell the story of where users need the most support or attention, making it a helpful tool for stakeholders. Using these techniques, we’ve seen engagement nearly double on websites we support. #productdesign #productdiscovery #userresearch #uxresearch

Some of the most important moments in your customer’s journey are the ones you aren’t paying attention to. Too many organizations focus on the obvious touchpoints—like purchases or customer service calls—but what about the moments in between? The ones that shape perception, build trust, or cause frustration before a customer ever reaches out? Here are a few touchpoints that often get ignored: 🚨 The “No Update” Update – Customers waiting for a response or resolution still need to hear from you. Silence creates anxiety. 🛑 The “Almost” Moments – Abandoned carts, unsubmitted forms, or incomplete sign-ups tell a story about friction in the journey. 📣 The Post-Resolution Experience – Fixing an issue isn’t the end of the journey. Do customers feel valued after? If these moments aren’t on your customer journey map, it’s time for a fix. In this article, we will find out why we need to identify and improve overlooked touchpoints. #CX #CustomerExperience #CustomerJourney #CustomerTouchpoint #CXSuccess