Customer Retention

Overview

Retention is the foundation of sustainable growth. It costs 5-7x more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. For solopreneurs, improving retention by even 5% can dramatically increase lifetime value and profitability. This playbook shows you how to measure, understand, and improve retention systematically.

Step 1: Measure Your Retention

You can't improve what you don't measure. Start by calculating your retention and churn rates.

Key metrics:

Churn Rate (monthly):

Churn Rate = (Customers Lost in Month / Customers at Start of Month) × 100

Example: Started month with 100 customers, lost 5 → 5% churn rate