Churn Bites Episode 3

ChurnBites - OpMethods Interview

Host: Dan Wilson (ChurnBites)
Guests: Deb Schleede (Chief Experience Officer, OpMethods) & Eric Potter (Chief Operating Officer, OpMethods)

Dan Wilson:

Hey folks, welcome to ChurnBites! Today, we're hearing from the fine folks at OpMethods about what happens when tech companies have no idea why their clients are churning.

Welcome, Deb and Eric! Please give a quick introduction about yourselves.

Deb Schleede:

Hey there! We are OpMethods, a revenue operations consulting and agency firm. We help businesses that are growing identify ways to improve their sales, marketing, and customer success motions. That includes the technology they use, the processes they have in place, and the lifecycle management strategies they employ. Our goal is to ensure their revenue keeps moving upward.

Eric Potter:

Yeah, just to add to what Deb said, we’re also a technology MSP. Our goal is to help businesses quantitatively understand their growth factors and ensure that they’re running data-driven processes to get the best insights about their business.

Dan Wilson:

Great! So today, we’re going to talk about what happens when tech companies don’t know why customers churn. Can you provide some background and context on that?

Deb Schleede:

Absolutely. We’ve worked with a lot of companies, and almost all of them, at some point, start identifying churn but have no idea why. They might hear anecdotal reasons—like a salesperson saying, “Oh, they left because of budget,” or a support team member mentioning a customer’s offhand complaint—but nothing is systematically tracked.

When leadership sits down and says, “We lost X million dollars this year from existing customers—why?” they often don’t have real data to answer that. That’s why it’s so important to have your ecosystem built to track at-risk triggers and causes.

Eric Potter:

Yeah, tracking all of this within your system is critical. Think of it as a new record that customer success or sales enters against an opportunity or an account. This data helps companies understand risk in real time. When you have review sessions, you need to be able to answer, why are we losing revenue?

Another key piece is that renewals are a major part of the customer success organization. If you don’t have an automated way of tracking and engaging customers before renewal, you’re always playing defense instead of being proactive.

Dan Wilson:

That makes sense. So, it sounds like the first step is gathering information about why clients are churning and adding it into a system that allows action to be taken. Where do you usually recommend companies start?

Deb Schleede:

I always recommend starting with your CRM. It’s where your customer data, opportunity data, and renewals already live. If support data is also in there, aligning everything within a single ecosystem allows companies to quickly analyze trends.

For example, if you had 50 renewals last quarter but only 40 actually renewed, you need to know the reasons behind those 10 losses. Aligning that within your existing data system is critical for understanding and addressing churn.

Eric Potter:

Even before getting into a system, it’s important to workshop internally. Get all your stakeholders together—sales, customer success, support, and even marketing. Document all the internal reasons why customers leave before you build anything. That way, when you implement a tracking system, there are stable definitions in place that everyone understands and interacts with consistently.

Dan Wilson:

That’s a great point. Many companies focus solely on their new business motion and don’t think about churn until they see a decline in renewals. What are the main causes of churn that you see?

Deb Schleede:

Usually, churn falls into three main categories:

1. Competitor-related churn – Customers leave because competitors offer more attractive features.
2. Budget-related churn – A company’s budget might change, and they can no longer afford your service.
3. Product-related churn – Customers may be frustrated by a release or lack of a feature they expected.

Identifying which of these factors applies is the first step. Then, companies can take targeted action to address them.

Eric Potter:

Yeah, and once you have that data, you need to build playbooks. If marketing is involved, they can provide communication strategies when certain churn triggers arise. For example, if a customer mentions budget concerns, marketing can craft targeted messaging to retain them.

Having pre-built playbooks means that when a CS rep hears a risk signal, they already know how to respond instead of scrambling to figure it out.

Dan Wilson:

That’s fantastic advice. So, if a company realizes they don’t have a structured customer success process, what steps should they take to fix that?

Deb Schleede:

Step one is to operationalize your system to track at-risk customers. Identify all the reasons a customer might become a churn risk, document them, and build tracking into your CRM. Define whether the risk occurs at renewal, mid-contract, or another stage in the lifecycle.

Step two is aligning your leadership and teams. Make sure everyone understands the same definitions, how renewals take place, and how upsells work. This prevents last-minute scrambling.

Eric Potter:

Step three is automating renewal tracking. Too often, companies wait until the last minute to send a contract, leaving no time to assess risk or address concerns. We always recommend that companies start the renewal process at least 90 days before the contract ends.

Creating opportunities in the CRM that trigger early touchpoints makes it visible to leadership and customer success teams, ensuring proactive engagement instead of last-minute scrambling.

Dan Wilson:

That makes total sense. So, to summarize:

1. Get your data into a system – Track churn reasons consistently.
2. Align leadership and teams – Make sure definitions are clear and processes are in place.
3. Automate renewals – Give teams time to engage customers and address concerns before it’s too late.
4. Use playbooks – Have predefined responses for common churn causes.

Any final thoughts?

Deb Schleede:

Just that proactive customer success is the key to growth. Companies that embed customer success early don’t just reduce churn; they create expansion opportunities within their existing base.

Eric Potter:

Yeah, and it’s important to remember that growing revenue isn’t just about acquiring new customers. It’s about keeping and expanding the ones you already have.

Dan Wilson:

Absolutely! Thank you, Deb and Eric, for sharing your insights. If you want to learn more about OpMethods, check them out at opmethods.com.

That’s it for this episode of ChurnBites! See you in the next one!

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