Episode 77 - The Four Reasons Your Customers Churn
Tom Burrell
November 27, 2025
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Welcome to episode 77 of the Retention Blueprint!
Why do wildly different businesses, from Netflix to Peloton, HelloFresh to Duolingo, lose customers for the exact same reasons?
It’s not industry, price, or product quality.
It’s human behaviour.
Across every subscription category, four universal problems rooted in six behavioural mechanisms shape customer retention.
They predict drop-off curves, expose timing risks, and reveal which problems are easiest (and hardest) to fix.
Today, we connect all the dots from behavioural science → retention curves → lifecycle timing → playbook levers.
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📰 4 Reasons Your Customers Churn
1. “I don’t feel the value fast enough to keep using this.”
Why it’s universal: Every subscription (content, physical, digital, hybrid) expects users to form a habit quickly. If the service doesn’t deliver an early “aha moment,” the user never fully engages.
Why it’s expensive:
Users churn before first renewal → wasted acquisition cost
Harder to win back a user who “never got it”
This is the single most significant driver of early-stage churn
2. “I’m paying for something I don’t use, I feel guilty.”
Why it’s universal: All subscriptions are charged on a recurrent basis. When usage drops, guilt rises. Gyms, Netflix, meal kits, vitamins, meditation apps, gaming passes, and premium newsletters all have the same pattern.
Why it’s expensive:
Users blame the brand for making them feel wasteful
Can lead to passive (silent) churn, which is hardest to detect
Low usage is the #1 cause of mid-stage churn.
3. “The novelty has worn off, I’m not excited anymore.”
Why it’s universal: Human brains love novelty. They also habituate quickly.
Whether it’s:
streaming libraries
fitness content
subscription boxes
betting apps
mobile games
learning tools
meal kits
…every category suffers from “excitement decay.”
Why it’s expensive:
Engagement doesn’t just drop- it falls off a cliff
Users perceive the product as “samey,” even though new content/products are created
Novelty decay is the #1 cause of churn in months 3–6.
4. “I don't feel valued.”
Why it’s universal: Many brands intentionally or unintentionally create friction in:
Customer service
Cancellation processes
Plan changes
Pausing
Downgrading
Price hikes
Ultimately, this happens most of the time because policies and approaches are business-centric, leaving the customer feeling unvalued and unappreciated.
This causes inertia churn, where users continue paying while emotionally disengaging.
Why its expensive:
Users stop engaging, but still cost
Negative word of mouth of active users can hurt brand reputation
Once they leave, they rarely reactivate
The 6 behavioural mechanisms behind all churn
These 4 churn problems are driven by six underlying human behavioural mechanisms that create the same retention problems everywhere.
1. The “Activation Threshold” Problem
Mechanism: Humans need a clear, fast, rewarding first experience to form a habit.
Most subscriptions fail because the user:
doesn’t see value quickly
is confused on day 1
doesn’t know what to do next
has too much choice
doesn’t get a “quick win”
This drives: “I don’t feel value fast enough.”
In behavioural science:
Success = Early Reward + Low Effort
Failure = Delayed Reward + High Effort
If that first dopamine hit doesn’t happen early, nothing else matters.
2. The “Intention–Action Gap”
People want to use a subscription… but don’t because intentions don’t reliably lead to action.
Reasons:
competing priorities
low motivation
The product isn’t tied to an existing routine
The friction costs are too high
This drives: “I’m paying, but I don’t use it.”
This is why gyms, meditation apps, language apps, and meal kits share identical churn curves.
3. The “Hedonic Adaptation Curve”
Humans quickly normalise ANY ongoing experience, even good ones.
Delight fades. Novelty evaporates. Excitement drops.
This is pure evolutionary psychology.
What was exciting becomes normal.
This drives: “The novelty wears off.”
It happens to:
Netflix
Subscription boxes
Games
Learning apps
Fitness programs
Meal kits
Beauty clubs
Even betting platforms
Unless the product intentionally replenishes novelty, churn is inevitable.
4. The “Cognitive Load Barrier”
When the experience feels even slightly overwhelming, people disengage.
This affects:
too many choices
too many features
too much content
too many workout programs
too many betting markets
too many plan options
Choice overload creates stress → stress creates avoidance.
This reinforces: “I don’t use it.”, “The novelty wears off.”
5. The “Negative Emotion Loop”
Subscriptions can trigger:
guilt
regret
frustration
anxiety
And here’s the kicker: When people feel negative emotions toward a product, they avoid the product, which increases churn.
And guilt is one of the top negative emotions for subscriptions: “I feel guilty for not using it.”
This is why even GOOD products lose users once guilt comes into play.
6. The “Friction–Loss Paradox”
Humans are intolerant of friction.
Customer Service Friction, Price Change Friction, Downgrade Friction, Pause Friction, and Cancel Friction cause emotional churn before behavioural churn.
User feels undervalued
Users disengage
Stop caring
Mentally unsubscribe
Talk negatively about the brand
Reduce usage to zero (even if they’re still technically paying).
This drives: “I don't feel valued”
The paradox: Friction increases revenue (e.g. by making it difficult to downgrade or cancel, fewer people do so) or reduces costs (e.g. long service wait times) in the short term, but increases resentment, churn, and negative word of mouth in the long term.
Retention Diagnosis
Would you like a Retention Diagnostic Worksheet version of this model, designed to run workshops or audits, or to plug directly into your retention conversations?
I’ve already mapped this into a one-page framework. Email me back, I’d be happy to share: [email protected]
Until next week,
Tom
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