User churn is a hole in the hull of a boat. Depending on how small of a problem it is, chances are the boat can keep on going — it’s only a matter of time. Don’t fix it and it will go sinking. Keep on building on top of it and you’ll keep on running away from it.

Unless you fix it first so you can build on top of it at a faster (and more efficient) rate, it’ll be there.

But hey, sometimes you don’t know it until it pops. Like I found out today when my kitchen sink started flooding the house. I get it, there are no users in my pipe and no CLV in the water that might rot the hardwood. But I think there is a parallel to be drawn here.

Sometimes you can’t know until it happens but when it does, it could be a blessing in disguise. It can tell you something more about the company, about what you do, about the way you do it.

User churn is most of the time happening because of a number of reasons I keep seeing in the companies I work with. For instance, users don’t get enough value, they get it better elsewhere (better can mean both cheaper or more expensive), the visions don’t align anymore. This is not the full list as that’s not the scope of this article.

What the article is about is the blessing in disguise I mentioned above.

Sometimes, users leave a product because they wish it could do more. And this tells you which direction you should take.

It’s true, in a lot of cases people don’t break a relationship with a product even thought they could get more value from elsewhere. It’s called the lock-in effect, which will surely be analysed in another article of mine, somewhere in the future.

I’m aware what I mention is a trait I noticed in myself and one that’s not common. It’s not a characteristic that’s found in the average user but it is found commonly among CEOs. Simply seeing what could be made more out of a product renders you disappointed when it doesn’t reach its full potential

Let’s Talk Practicality

I was a user of Google Play Music ages ago, before Apple Music came out — on both an iOS and Android device. It was wonderful as it bypassed hardware sync connection (I’m 1000% against wires), my music was virtually everywhere I could log in with my Google account and it was stored in the cloud.

However, they had so many shortcomings and naturally the iOS app was far from smooth. Eventually, I broken-heartedly jumped ship to Apple Music and did look back every now and then, but simply because my library was there.

Here’s the takeaway: vision is there in your head and you’re taking it out into the world, materialising ideas. Sometimes they don’t go as planned — but there are silver linings in those “mismatches”. Maybe you’re pushing a square peg in a round hole, maybe a round peg in a square hole.

Or maybe the triangle peg is tilted at the wrong angle for a triangle hole.

About Ch Daniel

I run chagency, an experiences design agency that specialises on helping tech CEOs reduce user churn. We believe experiences are not only the reason why users choose not to leave but also what generates word of mouth. We’re building a credo around this belief.

I’ve also created an infinitely-valuable app for sneaker/fashion enthusiasts called Legit Check that impacted hundreds of thousands over millions of times – check it out at chdaniel.com/app

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