GSD Podcast - How to reduce customer churn and Increase your B2b SaaS profits with Anita Toth

I met Anita recently and after a few minutes of talking, I knew that I had to record a podcast with her. Anita has taken her experience as a university qualitative researcher and is now obsessed with helping companies reducing their churn. HINT- the problem is not always what you think it is.

Transcript:

Jeff  00:11

All right, it says I'm recording. So Anita, how are you?

Anita Toth  01:15

I'm doing well. Jeff, how are you?

Jeff  01:17

Good. Can you guess how many beverages containers are on my desk right now? Let's do like six, let's say say three now. That's good. But you know what it's been when I had the desk with like the L on it. Like, yeah, we definitely had. Anybody that worked with me would know that was a fun game that would get them like a free lunch if they're answered. Right. So

Anita Toth  01:38

as I guess I don't get a free lunch.

Jeff  01:40

no free lunch. But so we talked a few days ago. And I was like, oh my god, I have to get you on. Why can't we do this today, and but you're a busy person. So we're doing it now. Which is awesome. And I really love how you're positioning yourself, because and I'll let you explain what that is. But the whole, like, if you're going to do something, do it well, and be hyper focused and super niche, like you're doing all of that. So I'd love for you to say what that is and then talk about, you know, in five minutes, sort of that road on how you got there. And then we can just talk about customers and how much they love us and stuff. So

Anita Toth  02:16

all right. Yeah, sounds great. So I call myself a CCC, which is a chief churn Crusher? Oh, yeah. Anybody who comes from SaaS background in particular, but most businesses will will use the term churn. Right. So the history of this quickly, I worked for 14 years as a research coordinator in a University Research Institute. I am trained as a qualitative researcher, which means basically ask a lot of questions. You take your data, you crunch it, and then you make recommendations based on the data you collected. Right. So I worked there for 14 years was laid off wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Facebook ads were really coming up. Yeah, like, and it was hot. Like, you

Jeff  03:10

know, there was a bunch of companies here in Boston, that that's what they did. And they made in all I can say is like, now they're subletting their offices out, and they felt like two employees left. So yeah,

Anita Toth  03:19

yeah, yeah, but four years ago, he's four and a half. Yes, five years ago now. It was really hot. They were really new. Nobody, you know, it was it was great to just jump in there. So I got into digital marketing, fell in love with it. But I just felt like I have kids of my own. And I remember that toddler stage where you just had to watch them constantly be into stuff. Well, back then that's what it was like having a Facebook ad agency, they didn't have limits. You just, you know, you would pop in two days later and suddenly, like,

Jeff  03:53

the whole thing on what like, yeah, exactly, oh, it was insane. Like

Anita Toth  03:57

it would just all of a sudden skyrocket and your cost per view, or click or whatever you are measuring. So I just couldn't take it as what it was. And I felt like there's got to be a better way. So I closed the agency, and decided to jump into consulting using those qualitative research skills. And really a lot of stuff around customer profile really getting to know the customer. Unfortunately, I didn't have product market fit and I was going after coaches and consultancy. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was like, I knew I had hit my bottom when I was almost desperately begging someone whose business was failing to hire me and I was like, you know, no, this is ridiculous. There's got to be some somewhere else where they really will value this skill set I have. And around that time, I had partnered with someone and ironically enough, he He has a PhD in qualitative research methods. So he does surveys. And we were looking to create to a survey app, and I, you know, we started on all of that. And I wanted to know, what was one of the big things that SaaS companies faced? Because I'm always curious what's coming down the road at me, I want to just research and get a sense. And that's what led me to turn. And when, when I had that moment of desperation, talking to this woman, and trying to beg her to, you know, to hire me, I was like, this is just, this is nuts. So what I did is I closed down that business, and I realized my skill set really applied well with churn and Saas companies, and that's how I niched down and you know, that, you know, inflection points of product market fit, boom, within six weeks of making the change. That was it got my first three, three clients last week.

Jeff  05:53

So, you know, it's so funny, because I think this is probably a non segue, but or non sequitur, but like, it's stuck in my head. So I want to know, when we started talking about the SaaS companies, what do you know? Because if you don't, so if I'm gonna move on from it, was there a big do people recognize churn as a product problem before SaaS because I don't remember it as much like I remember, we had a reference ability, but I don't remember churn, but I was might not have been involved in that side of the business as much before. So I don't know if you've bumped into that in your research or not.

Anita Toth  06:24

It's it's kind of gone through different names. I've heard customer retention retention.

Jeff  06:31

In a big number. Yeah. Well, right.

Anita Toth  06:35

So I think what's happened is, and I'm not quite sure where it happened, but the SaaS community adopted churn as their particular way of describing when customers leave their business. That

Jeff  06:46

makes sense, because back in the day, you had to install things. It was a huge pain in the ass, right? Like, you spent a whole bunch of money on implementation and everything was SaaS, it's like credit card info. So login, start using the stuff. So you don't like it? You just stop using it. Right. Move on to the next. Absolutely. So yeah. So funny. Because, you know, as we discussed, I know you get pulled into these situations where people think it's a personnel problem, right? We I know you're laughing because we went over this for a long time. And we're like, that's it like my success leaders, the word I need you to go in and figure out like, what X, Y and Z is going and is that the typical situation that you get pulled into? Is that the conversation that happens? Like, can you figure out why we're churning so much or

Anita Toth  07:34

so there's usually three, three different things that they when I'm speaking with SaaS founders, or CEOs that they come to me about. One is great product, great growth, but they're just not happy about the churn rate that they currently have. And they want to reduce it. The second is that they have a great team. Yeah. But they're reluctant to implement some big churn reducing measures, because they don't know how it's gonna affect the team. The other part is whether the team will buy into it or not. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it is it is.

Jeff  08:08

So you'd be afraid to put in the thing that would fix the problem, because you don't know how the team would

Anita Toth  08:13

feel about it. Yeah, I and it's clearly this

Jeff  08:17

day of like valuations and stock that people will be like, Oh, wow.

Anita Toth  08:22

Yeah, I'm shocked. It's so that's, I mean, that is a smaller percentage, significantly.

Jeff  08:28

So I actually have been in the room when those conversations have happened. But people like, oh, manage through it. So yeah,

Anita Toth  08:33

yeah. Well, I guess it all depends on the type of, of business you have, and that relationship with your team. So some of them have been afraid, because, and we can get into this. When you're going to reduce churn, it is a company wide effort, right? It is not just one thing, and you flip that switch and suddenly turn reduces. And that's really where that fear is coming from, is how wide is this going to be? How big is this going to be? And can I get everybody on board? Right? So that really depends on the culture of the company. The last thing is they've done their research. And they know like, there's same thing, there's no simple solution to reducing churn, and they have no idea where to start. And if they start on their own will, the will the measures that they take actually work. So that those are the three scenarios the most common is they're, they're growing well, things are going okay. They just don't like that high churn rate. They want to bring it down. And then the third one, which is they've done their research, and they're, they're overwhelmed. Yeah. And they don't know where to start.

Jeff  09:43

What's the step because I'm not a well, what's the current industry standard that people are trying to hold you for churn rate, or retention rate, whatever you want to

Anita Toth  09:51

bid cleat like 5% is still pretty high. That means you know, every half year you're losing all of those customers and have to reapply furnish them. So the standard I most are trying to get around 2%. Okay, if you can, I mean that the

Jeff  10:07

consumer and enterprise, you know, for more though, like, you know, sign up for 500 with a credit card I can see there being a lot higher churn rate but enterprise I can see like, Yeah, you don't want higher than 5%. So

Anita Toth  10:20

well, and even with enterprise the advantages then because there's often other products, upsell, cross sell, you can get into net negative churn, which is really where that would be awesome. But that's, that's mostly because of expansion revenue. Gotcha. And a lot of the smaller SaaS, they don't, they don't have that ability to upsell and cross sell in the same way. So you're right, there is a difference between the smaller ones and enterprise?

Jeff  10:46

Sure. So when you get brought in, who you typically working with the most, is it the CEOs? Is it the success person? Is it marketing? It is usually the founder. Oh, no kidding. It is?

Anita Toth  10:58

Yeah. Usually the founder finds me and, and brings me in, and then

Jeff  11:03

it's almost like, like, internal affair thing, right? Like, do they people like Who's that? Like, oh, don't worry about it. And then you're the consultants in the room? Ask me a lot of questions.

Anita Toth  11:13

Yeah. Well, that's what it feels like. But typically, what I do is sit down with the founder and work with them. First, I've got to really get a good understanding. And again, you wouldn't think this book, what is it like to be a customer? And that customer experience? I want to have a really good idea of what they're dealing with? And then the second is the culture and how systems work? How does this company actually flow in terms for me of the data? I want to see, are they are they sharing? Are they really siloed? And that that is really what I come in and do and it's, it's kind of strange, because I can't lead with that to say that. Yeah. Because it's like, what was that have to do with churn? And it's kind of everything, right. But I, the easiest way for me to come in is look at the customer experience, and the customer journey and see where are the biggest opportunities, I focus there first, then the longer term. So getting so we might get the turn down? 5%? Within, you know, first 90 days? Yeah, like, all depends.

Jeff  12:24

Well, depends what the source of the churn is, right? Because we got it. Yeah, you've got

Anita Toth  12:29

it. So if it's delinquent churn, they've got these credit cards, that they're just they're just failing to process. Hey, that's an easy win. And not everybody knows to put in an entire and you can't put in an entire process to get delinquent.

Jeff  12:43

There's the Canadian, everybody, we've got a Canadian. Oh, did you get it? You said process, which is always the tell? Oh, don't worry about it. We love our love our 51st state up north, so it's. So it's funny. I've seen this so much. And you highlighted it. Everybody thinks it's like, oh, we've got to get our 90 Day launch down to 60 days. Right. And so if you were to say we had three because you're the research and the quantitative person, what are the three usual things that are what are the usual buckets of things that are the fast wins that you said, you know, within the 90 days, were here's some things that we do that will immediately kind of turn this turn around. But then maybe there's some other longer term things that we get to dive into.

Anita Toth  13:35

And there actually is, and that's how if, if I work with a company, we have a 90 day engagement, and then we have a 12 month engagement? exactly for that scenario, because the longer term stuff focuses more on building the right information systems, getting the teams on board, this is where you talk about not culture piece. That's the longer term, the shorter term tends to be around things like delinquent churn. Ringing the, you know, one of the favorites that people don't really look at it is grandfathered customers.

Jeff  14:10

Yeah, yeah. And it's, like our first people they trusted in us. Only paying

Anita Toth  14:16

I had one client just recently tell me paying 1/10 1/10 The amount, right? So that's great. And there's a process for that you don't just you know, wake up one day and decide, all right, we're just going to, you know, bring you all up to current rates. Here's a way to nurture it, but that's often a big pot of money, right there. That isn't necessarily churn per se. But hey, when I point that out, and they see that there's a big chunk of money that they can recover, let me tell you, they're, they're usually very happy about it. Yep. And then the third third is usually somewhere in the onboarding experience. Okay. So we start we again as I so this is what I do. I Always, always sign up as a customer. I want to see what the experience is like, I don't want them to tell me, I want to see it from the from the users perspective. And so there's usually something in there that we can focus on right away that will will, you know, turn things around.

Jeff  15:18

Interesting was great. So maybe some of the longer term things because one of the when we were talking previously, we talked about the, hey, maybe there are a lot of end of the quarter really crappy deals that you know, like, well, they don't really need everything that we do. And does that happen a lot? Or am I just sort of overgeneralizing? Some things that have happened to me, and

Anita Toth  15:42

I haven't really had that yet, again. So it's so tough, because they're, they're all so custom. Yeah, but the bigger things for me are getting the proper information flow. So again, coming from qualitative research, this is bring that the customer profiles that are developed, and there's usually two or three customer profiles per product, not just, you know, overall for the company, right? And it's getting marketing, sales, customer success, all involved and customer support in the process of creating that. And the better, you can get everyone on the same page and focusing on those customer profiles, the more you can share the information. So that means marketing suddenly has a much better understanding of the challenges, the pain points, and how to like what hooks might work to bring, bring those leads in sales, they talk to these people all the time, but often don't pass on the patient. Yeah, you know, the real information, like the real pain points, the real challenges. The other thing is the

Jeff  16:55

goals. Right? So why are why are they using the product? Exactly.

Anita Toth  17:00

Right. So getting them a customer support is the easiest, because people are contacting them, they have a problem, they, you know, push it out to product, but they tend not to push it out to marketing and sales and say, Hey, you guys are saying this, but this, you know, people are coming on my end and saying, This is not what is actually happening. Right? Maybe we need to change some of those angles. Right? Right. Yeah. So this is what I do. And this is why that buy in becomes a bit of a challenge. Because you're now dealing with culture, you're dealing with their processes. This is our sales process. No, we don't deal with them, whatever it might be. And, for me, it's all based on the flow of data, I want to see that data flowing throughout the entire company. So the entire company feels that they are participating, and focusing on the most important thing, which is actually the customer

Jeff  17:57

right now. 100%. Do you ever turn down customers? Yes. What are some reasons that this is always the fun stuff? What are some of the reasons like besides crazy founder, because they're all crazy, but

Anita Toth  18:10

I have actually, I'll tell you, Jeff, I've had wonderful experiences with the clients I take on I'm the first is if they don't respect me, as someone who knows what I'm doing, if I get any sort of pushback or argument from right from the start that or they're blaming the economy, this that is whatever we're done, like, we're not going to go any further because I need to be open minded, because look, what I'm actually suggesting the turn is a company wide issue, and needs to be addressed right through the company. If they're already closed minded to this, they're not going to accept that as a solution. Yeah,

Jeff  18:51

they'll take the report. And then we want what is the some standard? I said report, but it's probably a lot more involved than that. What sort of deliverables? Or how do you sort of present your your changes? Is it more of an iterative? Let's try this every week? Or is it more of a? I've done my report, and here you go, it's bound nicely in a three ring binder, or

Anita Toth  19:13

no, that's not me. No, I really, I can tell ya, no, that's not me. I really care about my clients and I want their like, my success is their success. So it is iterative. We go through we talk about Alright, let's, let's try this. And then they need to report back to me on what's happened. Sure. What was the outcome? What challenges did you face going through it? And then the other part what was easy? Because that, again, informs me about that cultural piece. And maybe I can use that information then moving forward, when I suggest something bigger once we get into that, you know, longer 12 month engagement, because that's actually where it gets more challenging. really pushing those things forward? And I got to see, all right, how does this company work that I can then leverage those wins? So I go throughout. And that means sometimes they email me in between our meetings and say, This is what I'm dealing with. Okay, great. Let's talk about it.

Jeff  20:17

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. That's great. So what was I was thinking about tools and trends and some things to get into it. I've been asked a lot recently, you know, should we put this system in? And I think what's going on, and I don't want to get pigeonholed on this is that a lot of people do think that if they put in this customer analytic tool that's going to solve all their issues, but are you seeing that she's shaking her? Do those things help? Because I'm, I have heard from people that are like this, I'm not gonna say the name of the product. We all know who they are, is amazing. And this and that. And it's like, well, yeah, but if you call the customer up every other week, and you kind of get some of the same answers, but I don't know. So why don't you give me your perspective on some of these tools that are out there? And why you're shaking your head so vigorously.

Anita Toth  21:08

Okay. One sentence, they will tell you the what they don't tell you the why. Full stop,

Jeff  21:15

you still have to go say like, how can we know using our product? I just

Anita Toth  21:19

so you know, and and I fully encourage anybody to start because you've got to start tracking somehow. And those hard metrics are they do, they will highlight some areas where you're like, Hey, why did we have a huge drop off right here? Yeah, what can we do about we still have to go and speak with the customer and find out why. Right? Why did they go from active to inactive? Right? And so that is the biggest, that's what I do. Let's start finding out why. And it's weird, because we like to converse with people. We all do, like humans are social beings. But yet this process of actually going and asking that those questions, and they need to be structured to one, and there's an order to them. And third, they've got to be done with. I like to call it like a curious spirit. Sure, instead of going in and saying, Alright, so like, you were active here, now you're inactive. And what happened? Yeah, why?

Jeff  22:17

Why are you so broken? But that's the approach. You're doing that. So it actually might be welcomed and received more than you're doing it? I'm assuming you're saying you're you're consulting to the company, like you've been asked to help. Because I feel like people are going to be more open with you on user surveys, journeys, we do that sometimes with our UX work. Somebody says, Hey, we want to build back from like, can we talk to some customers? And yeah, you get everything. They said, and then like, they started talking about the other company. And

Anita Toth  22:49

yeah, you know what, though? I've put this on on, I think it's still on my LinkedIn site. Bill Gates has one of the best quotes on this. And it is your greatest source of learning is your unhappy customers.

Jeff  23:03

Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah. And I am shocked. With how little the product management teams I've worked with value that right, and your stupid customer and this and that, and I'm just like, Oh, God, like is, you know, I know, we designed this and did this in the right way. But then on my it's kind of listen, the customers don't like it, or they don't like the onboarding experience is now like, whoa, put a walk me and we find them it's like,

Anita Toth  23:31

but do you know what it is? And we come like, we all come from our own perspective. Right, right. And so the lens, I get it equals lens of the developer as well, this makes logical sense, because we're going from here to here to here to here to here. But as the user, your end goal might be vastly different from that. And it is there's your misalignment right there. So then you've got people calling support, they're not happy, they become inactive. Because what has actually been developed is not aligned with what they are trying to do. And they're thinking, they're, you know, like, there's been some great software I've been so excited about. And I sign up and Hi, I'm so confused. Yeah. And I like to think I'm fairly intelligent. Yeah, I'm so confused. And I'm like, I don't even know what to do here. And so I turn I do I become an inactive and then I and then I quickly turn and that's usually in that trial phase. Sure. No, no, yeah. Because again, your your churn is can be measured in many different ways. And that's one of the key ones is is where are they turning in that trial phase versus paid customer right? Sure. So I'm using walk me wonderful, but that's not enough. Right? If you are not aligning the actual product to what they are trying to accomplish. You're always going to have this and then it's just well we'll add this and then we'll change this and will it gotta go asks Don't ask them often. No. Who has that info? Is the sales team? Oh, yes, they're talking to them. Yeah, they can. These are trained professionals who can listen to what people are saying and pull out, oh, you're telling me you want to do this. But really, once they have the conversation, they find out it's three levels deeper. And they're actually trying to accomplish that, right. Yeah. And this is why you got to have those conversations, because I'll tell you like, oh, yeah, I just want this to be faster, whatever it is I'm trying to do. And then you and I talk back and forth, and you realize, you know what I not, I want it to be faster, because I want it to then lead to this next step. And it is frustrating me because I can't get to that next step that this faster piece was supposed to

Jeff  25:48

help me. I'm just laughing because I was going through that over the last 24 hours. And I'm just like, how come I can't hit the enter button, and there's nothing that's telling me like, Oh, you haven't clicked the checkbox. I'm like, Look, it's not 2006 anymore. Like if you user forums missing an entry thing. Show him in a nice read. Oh, my God just drives me absolutely crazy. Yeah, yes.

Anita Toth  26:08

So it's digging out that stuff, which means you're gonna hear and I think this is where that fear comes in. You're going to hear that something you've worked so hard on for so long, right? Maybe is headed the wrong direction. Right. You might have to turf it.

Jeff  26:26

Why hate reviews? Like, can we just can you just tell me like, just just tell me it was good about like, I don't even want to? I don't want hear the examples? I don't want to hear like, Yes, I know, I lost my temper like,

Anita Toth  26:38

because we it's so hard right? To get that. But this is why I really and this is now when I become a coach, you know, put on my little coaching hat is to try to change the mindset from one of like, I don't want to hear it or I don't want to know, to let's be curious, and use that Bill Gates quote, that your unhappiest customers are your greatest source of learning. If you can flip that and just yet, wow, like it is going to solve so many issues that you've been struggling with, because now you're actually hearing what the customer has been trying to say through their support calls and inactivity. You're now actually you're not guessing you're hearing it? Yeah.

Jeff  27:23

Oh, no, I'm gonna say a concept that I think is awesome. But you can feel free to say no, it's still the bullshit, which is the customer advisory board, like, do you find? Tell them Oh, shit. Okay. So like, I don't know. So I have found? Well, we let's get into this a little bit, because I can tell you where it was, it was super helpful, but like, what's your experience with the cab? And? And why it might not be the panacea that I think it is. So like it's my parents do the same exact site when he was asked something the other day?

Anita Toth  28:03

Yeah. QUESTION And you don't want it like, it has value, there's no doubt, but I think it has value at different stages. When you are, you know, really growing quickly, that can be really helpful, because again, you're getting really good feedback and all of that, I think where it becomes problematic is where it becomes just a legacy thing, where it's not really adding value anymore. So twice a year, we'll have this event or bring them together and talk talk talk, or this is where I see, you got to really be on it. Your customer profile is not static, or customer profiles are not static. Things are always changing. And what ends up happening with any board I've seen, if you have people that sit on it for a very long time, they don't bring a new perspective. They just bring the same perspective they've always had. And that's where it becomes a real issue.

Jeff  28:57

Well, it's funny in when I started bringing up suddenly the memory of the last one that I was part of started popping into my head, which is like, Oh, we had these massive enterprise companies that just pretty much dictated our roadmap. And if we didn't build that stuff, they were even threatened to move to the next people. And then there was this wave of like, well, we should bring on x y&z and get rid of those people because yeah, they just keep wondering the same thing, which we're not going to build unless we charge them like some NRA, multimillion dollar thing to go build them that one feature or something like that. So Yep. Good. I know that there's a coughing in the background. So yeah, sorry, sorry. Oh, no. You can hear my voice. I've been talking straight for like 36 hours now. So so I can just smoke some camo and filters or something. So So

Anita Toth  29:44

going back to going back to that. If that's what's happening, then that means that customer advisory board is ineffective. Yeah. And it needs to change and whoever the facilitator is, needs to then get get a better grip. In terms of, of really defining what the board is for, and if the board is to just push forward, you know, those companies and what they want, then that's an ineffective board. And I would say it's actually detrimental then to your business, it is not helping in any way, a really good board would try to serve the entire community. So that means all of your customer groups. And it's, you know, what, it's it takes work. It's hit and miss. It is not like, oh, wow, like, you can be very fortunate and get the right people on. But again, it's not just a one and done. Things are changing markets changing, right? You've got to be able to rotate people in and out of those positions. And that's what I noticed, even at the university, when we would have some of our board members who stayed on for 678 years, they never brought anything new right to the table.

Jeff  30:58

You're like, oh, now's the time, where you gonna talk about that thing? Exactly. I'm gonna switch directions here, again, non scripted. And I am you know, it's been a thread on a couple every time I talked with the success, people churn, not not as much. So I just might wanted to see if there's anything in the data that you've seen. There's a lot of, well, there's no standardization on the who owns the customer, and owns the customer relationship. And sometimes when I get down to it, oh, no, where the CSM is me on and I'm like, Okay, let me ask you a question. There is an upsell. Who gets the commission like, oh, the CSM gets to the mic. Okay. There's a renewal. Who gets the upsell? No, I the rep. And I'm like, huh, so does have you seen if there's nothing, then it's not it's no problem? Is there any correlation between higher success rates and who owns that relationship? The renewals and the upsells, and all of that. So I will tell you, my friends that have not wanted to take part in the monetary aspects of things, which wind up being a cost center to the company. They eventually wish they were doing upsells and was, but they do really hold on to the idea of like, well, that really distorts our relationship with the customer, which I get. It's kind of like, Hey, we're having this really Congress cool conversation. Now I'm gonna hit stop. And we'd be like, India, by the way. I want to charge $5 The next time we talk and continually on every. So has there been Have you bumped into this? In your travels?

Anita Toth  32:42

I really don't focus on a lot of that. So

Jeff  32:45

I will tell you, it's fine. Because that's where when I talk about people having their problems they're really lasered in on that, which is interesting. So

Anita Toth  32:52

yeah, no, like, it's, I haven't bumped across it yet. But I'm also not looking for it. Okay, it's not really I try not to get into that aspect. Because again, for me, it's more about the data flow, rather than revenue flow.

Jeff  33:07

So it's like a hammer and a nail situation. That's because everybody's thinking that's what the issue is.

Anita Toth  33:12

Yeah. And for me, again, I come from qualitative research, the data flow for me is far more important than the revenue and I, I turn that over to other people, because it's, it's not and however they structure that because it's not my area of expertise.

Jeff  33:29

Interesting. I'll just bring this up. And I'll get your opinion on it. Because I've been in the room. very contentious rooms that that were somebody like, the CFO will say, sorry, let me edit it for public consumption here. Well, if the CSM is were given some commission or some upsell money, they take better care of their customers, and they'd be more engaged with them. Okay, interesting perspective, everybody's money driven, not so much. But that's kind of so people think that's the thing, and they will now move their whole, they will get less churn and better. Just remember what I said in that conversation. They'll go less churn, if they if they focus more on the customers, if they know that they're gonna get some point out of the deal. And I'm kind of like, maybe not give them 41 customers.

Anita Toth  34:22

Yeah, yeah, it's, again, part of what I do, I'm a consultant. But I'm also kind of have to put on a coach hat once in a while and tried to get them to see that maybe that's not the best perspective,

Jeff  34:37

right? But more comes from the data for you or it's like customers who aren't happy with why they're having to like they never hear from their CSM. Well, how can they ever do that? Like, well, let's take a look. They manage 50 customers, there's eight hours in a day.

Anita Toth  34:48

And all I can do is is make suggestions and recommendations, but it's up to them what they choose to implement. And I may may or may not agree with it, but at the end of the day, I'm there to support them, right. So, and again, in getting into that longer engagement period, the the more I get to know them, the more I know how to approach suggesting some of these things that I may have brought up in the beginning that, you know, they weren't interested in how can I gently guide them? Oh, suddenly this, this might be a good idea. Sure, sure. And really, that's so I'm not a one and done consultant here. You know?

Jeff  35:26

No, I really like because what I'm hearing is that you don't have you know, I've worked with marketing people that they come in, and they're like, this is my system, I did it a Coke, I did a Gillette we're doing it here. I'm like, Yeah, we're a start up. Those are monopolies like, that's not gonna work here. But what you're walking in with sort of, like, I'm looking at the data and then come up with some, you might, I'm guessing, have some general consumption, but you've come through the product. So you've used that to base here. So I'm hearing clean slate, come in compiled data, and then work iteratively back on some suggestions to improve some reduce things pretty fast. And then there's like, Okay, now, now, you know, I fixed the sink, but let's talk about your foundation now.

Anita Toth  36:06

And that's how I was gonna say, now the real work begins. And that's why you know, it's building on the momentum of those first 90 days, if I can get like one big quick win, or if I'm even lucky, one big and one medium size, then that momentum starts. And again, I've got to go in there and understand the culture, understand how they're thinking, and try to then say, alright, let's, let's look at our next areas that we're gonna focus in on and start working there.

Jeff  36:33

Awesome. Awesome. Am I missing anything? Because I don't want to have to steal. They said, I'm trying to keep these like in that 30 to 45 minute range.

Anita Toth  36:40

So no, I think I think we're good. The biggest thing is my approach is vastly different. So I do, I do switch kinda between consultant and coach, but I come in as a consultant, and I'm there to try to be, I don't even know as much as possible, because if I'm talking about the customer experience, and making it better as a way to reduce churn, I mean, I that's what I need to do with my clients as well. And not only me, that's what I want to do. That's what matters to me. Yeah, right. That's

Jeff  37:16

all I know. I can tell like I people won't see the video. But Anita is very passionate about this. I can tell which is awesome. It's what you want people to come in, I'd be like, putting the cigarette out me like, Okay, what do I need to fix here? Like the wolf or something like that, like, so that's great. So awesome. I will you know what I will, when I post this, I'll put the link to your LinkedIn profile. And that, is that the best place for people to find you? Or?

Anita Toth  37:39

I would say so or, yeah, yeah. You know, what helps them go there? I think that's easier because then we can just ask them to connect say that they you know, heard me from from your show, and then then I can start a conversation with them.

Jeff  37:53

Awesome. That's great. I so I'm going to put stop the recording and then we'll wrap up offline. So thanks very much. And so hold on one second. Let me get the record here. So