Today, I’m deep into writing my next book, focused on customer retention and churn in the AI era.
I’m writing my third business book on customer retention and churn. Ten years ago, I wrote my first business book on customer experience. A few years later, I wrote my second book on customer empathy.
Together, these three topics have become a natural progression of my work over the past two decades. Understanding how experiences shape customer behaviour, how empathy influences decision-making, and ultimately, how organisations create, protect and lose customer value over time.
I’m pleased to say the manuscript is progressing well, with Sections 1 and 2 now approaching 70% completion.
The book draws on my experience working across telecommunications, insurance, public transport, tourism, construction, and professional services, alongside insights gathered from 15 off-the-record conversations with executive and senior leaders, including CEOs, CMOs, Chief Customer Officers, Chief Revenue Officers, and customer growth leaders.
A sincere thank you to everyone who has generously shared their experiences, perspectives and challenges.
This book examines value erosion, customer silence, churn leakage and how AI is accelerating switching behaviours. The commercial consequence is a shrinking window to influence customer decisions, with growing implications for retention, revenue and growth.
Section 1 focuses on modelling the retention-to-churn journey. It explores how customer value erodes over time, the different forms of churn and revenue leakage, and the often-underestimated commercial impact these have on growth and profitability.
Section 2 builds on a key insight uncovered through the research and synthesis process. It examines a commercial vulnerability that may be affecting retention performance in more organisations than many leaders realise. More importantly, it explores how addressing this structural weakness could create a meaningful growth advantage.
What has surprised me most is how much customer retention and churn are changing.
Customers have more choice, more information and increasingly more AI-powered assistance to help them evaluate alternatives. The conditions that influence customer loyalty and churn are evolving rapidly.
The more conversations I have, the more convinced I become that retention deserves a far bigger place in executive discussions about growth. There is still plenty of writing ahead, and I’m continuing to speak with leaders responsible for customer growth, retention, loyalty, customer experience and commercial performance.
If that’s you, I’d love to hear your perspective too.
And to everyone who has contributed so far, thank you for helping shape the thinking.