Episode 83 - What breaks retention before you see it

Welcome to Episode 83 of the Retention Blueprint. 

Retention is not driven by continuous satisfaction.

Customers don’t care all the time.

They care sometimes.

And retention is decided in a small number of emotionally charged Moments of Truth where customers consciously or subconsciously decide whether to stay or leave.

Across every recurring revenue model, defection is driven by just four behavioural drivers:

1. I don’t feel value fast enough

2. I feel guilty because I’m paying but not using this

3. This is not exciting anymore

4. I don’t feel valued

What’s critical is that customers don’t wake up feeling these things randomly.

They’re created by how brands handle key moments in the relationship.

Moments of Truth come before the behavioural driver is felt.

Get them wrong, and customers quietly disconnect.

Get them right, and you can mitigate or even eliminate the forces that lead to defection.

Using a lifecycle lens, those four behavioural drivers reliably show up at different lifecycle stages: 

• Early-life value realisation

• Engagement and usage friction

• Novelty and excitement decay

• Recognition, service, and fairness

These lifecycle stages are not Moments of Truth.
Moments of Truth occur within these stages, and if handled badly, they trigger one of these behavioural questions. 

This distinction matters. It’s the difference between:

• Broad CX programmes that feel directionless, and

• Targeted interventions that reduce decision risk and drive retention impact.

The full framework breaks down:

• Which Moments of Truth dominate each lifecycle phase

• How different sectors weight the drivers differently

• How to prioritise moments based on impact × prevalence

I also anchor the framework with three leading case studies:

Netflix
Solved early-life doom-scrolling by engineering relevance at the first browsing moment.

LinkedIn
Uses behavioural nudges (profile completion) to push users past the activation threshold.

Amazon Prime
Built a moat around its best customers by optimising the delivery window.

If retention is a priority and progress feels harder than it should, this episode will help you see where to focus and, just as importantly, where not to.

👉 Read the full framework here
(Plus: tools to apply it in your own context.)

Until next time,

Tom

One last thing: I’m running a short agentic AI session on Google Meet in early March for C-suite and Director-level folk responsible for retention in recurring revenue businesses.  I’ll walk through how agentic AI can help teams:

• Spot risk before defection signals even appear (with embeddings)

• Use agents to design earlier, smarter interventions

• Shift from reacting to actually shaping retention outcomes

• Based on my moments of truth work. 

It’s practical, not theoretical. 45 mins + discussion, no pitch. On Google Meet. If you fit the profile and would like to join, hit reply, and I’ll save you a spot.