Measuring retention instead of churn shouldn’t be anymore difficult, as metrics go.  It should be designed to fit how you sell in your marketplace and around customer behavior.  I like how retention metrics focus on the positive and language turns into more customer focused intentions rather than preventative measures.  I like how retention can be proactive (“What can we do to be even better? How would you like to see us improve?”) and gets you out of being strictly reactive (“Oh, you want to leave?  Can we do something to keep you now?”)  Being focused on keeping the customer once they have decided to leave feels like “too little, too late”.  At that point, I am often more insulted than interested in taking any offer to stay.  Why wasn’t I valuable enough to you for this discounted offer before I decided to leave you?

So I vote that it’s time to leave behind the churn metrics and move forward into retention metrics.  Let’s show our customers we care about them now, while they are still with us on that customer experience ride.  What do you say?

1) Breathe – this year, I will breathe better, it is my health goal – I will do what it takes and I know what that is (ever had surgery for a deviated septum?  Then you know the pain of which I speak.)

2) Pocket – I always think of time in carved out sections now.  Probably because I have been trained in the corporate view of time in half hour or hour increments.  But this year, I will make more small pockets of time for those I care about.  Pick up the phone for just a few minutes, play a game with Samantha, go to lunch with Shawn – that kind of thing.

3) Fearless – I love that question, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” So that is going to be my filter, my gut check for my decisions this year.  I may not change all of my choices based on that but I will know more about why I make the choices I do.  I am going to try to fear less in 2009. 

My three words for 2009.  Let’s see how I do with this, shall we?  Stay tuned and I will let you know.