How to reduce churn at a small ISP

6 min read

Customers leave for a handful of reasons. Most are fixable.

Know why they leave

Ask every customer who leaves, and write it down. The reasons usually fall into a few groups: outages, slow speeds, billing friction, moving house, and price.

Fix the fixable

• Outages: tell customers before they ask
• Slow speeds: watch your busy hours and your contention
• Billing friction: make paying one tap
• Support: answer fast, even if the answer is "we are looking"

Do not cut people off

A dead connection makes people angry. A payment page makes paying easy. See soft suspension.

Measure it

Churn is the share of subscribers who leave in a month. Track it monthly, and look at which tower or plan it comes from.