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How do you stop customer churn? Here's why a centralized data hub can help

How Do You Stop Customer Churn? Here’s Why a Centralized Data Hub Can Help

This is the first post in a short blog series focused on preventing customer churn using a centralized data hub. Here’s an infographic version of the series!

 

The Problem: Recent Churn… and a Lack of Insight 

Here’s a problem our clients deal with all too often: miscommunication. As an example, let’s take a hypothetical company we’ll call Magenta Inc. who sells widgets that help their customers with everyday activities. They have sales reps that sell the product, a fulfillment center to complete the orders, and a servicing team to help answer questions and resolve customer issues. 

Magenta executives are noticing that churn within their customer base has been higher than usual, and they want to understand the customer journey as their clients flow through the three teams. 

Magenta put Atrium in touch with a Senior Sales Representative, Elaine Gadget, so we could get an idea of the current sales process and its pain points. Elaine said she could not stop thinking about the recent churn, and her inability to pinpoint the cause was making her restless. She gave us a peek into her daily routine, as well as the customer journey, so we could help her identify the problems.


The Communication Issue

On a typical day, Elaine checks in on her customers and works her pipeline. Lately, more of her existing customers are being short with her, and many are leaving without explaining why. All she’s heard is that order fulfillment is slow and the customer service has been less than satisfactory. Elaine realized that she has zero insight into what happens to her customers when other departments are aiding them. Put simply, she’s missing out on key information to ensure a great customer experience.

When Elaine closes a deal, she loses visibility because order fulfillment is tracked in a separate system.Her customers are either new leads or existing customers calling to purchase new widgets. After the call, she puts in an opportunity in Salesforce to track the opportunity and produce quotes for her customers. However, once that opportunity is closed, Elaine is in the dark. 

Fittingly, the Customer Service system also uses a different system, and they can’t see her Salesforce information either. This is preventing Elaine and the servicing team from meeting the customers’ needs and leading to missed cross-selling opportunities. To keep from losing more of Magenta’s customers, they need better insights and communication. 

This lack of valuable insight into customer data is preventing both Elaine and the servicing team from meeting the customers’ needs on a daily basis. Unfortunately, they need more information and better insights so that they are not losing Magenta’s customers. 


Why the Customer Journey Matters When it Comes to Churn 

Elaine wants better insights to address customers’ needs upfront instead of only focusing on the sale. Elaine is starting to lose faith in her ability to do her job well. If things don’t change in the near future, she may consider looking for employment elsewhere. 

Considering Magenta’s wide customer base, they would like to understand how they can optimize pricing, deliver targeted advertising, and prioritize the needs of their existing customers. With their teams working in silos, the miscommunication is impacting all facets of the business. They won’t be able to predict and circumvent customer churn without understanding the customer journey and addressing the communication issues. 

Closer to Solving the Issue

In short, to solve the issue, Elaine needs data from other systems to be front and center in her system of engagement (i.e., Salesforce). In the past, this involved some complex data integration to accomplish. In future parts of this series, we will show you how to use a centralized data hub like Snowflake to make getting that external data into Salesforce easier. In addition, we’ll use the power of Tableau CRM to present this data to Elaine and her team within their daily workflow.

Read the next part in this series where we dive deeper into what Magenta can do to save their customers from churning

 

In the meantime, find out how Atrium can help you tackle customer churn before it’s too late.