Stop the Churn, Grow Your Revenue: Understanding Why Clients Leave (And How to Stop It)
Juan Hilario
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3 minute read
- At the GWA Conference, Alliance’s Juan Hilario and Alex Garza discussed how small improvements in client retention can deliver major revenue gains.
- Data reveals that most churn happens from disengagement and inconsistent processes, rather than dissatisfaction.
- A proactive, client success mindset turns retention into a measurable growth strategy.
At last week’s GWA conference, Juan Hilario and Alex Garza from Alliance Virtual Offices led a roundtable titled “Stop the Churn, Grow Your Revenue.”
Their message to workspace operators was clear: consistent, hospitality-driven processes with a client success mindset can dramatically extend client lifetime value and increase revenue.
Why Retention Is Revenue
As demonstrated during the roundtable, Alliance’s data shows that small improvements in retention can deliver major revenue gains.
Here’s a simple example:
- Start with 100 clients paying $79/month, and add 5 new clients each month.
- If those clients stay 2 years (24 months), your total revenue reaches about $412,000.
- Extend that average stay to 3 years, and revenue jumps to $533,000.
- That’s an extra $120,000 over three years (about a 29% increase) without changing your marketing, pricing, or acquisition strategy.
The only difference? Your clients stayed longer.
That’s why we say: Retention is revenue.
Understanding Why Clients Leave
When Alliance analyzed thousands of cancellations, a revealing pattern emerged:
Most clients didn’t leave because they were unhappy. They left because they never fully used the virtual office service.
Others left over service inconsistencies such as lost mail, delayed replies, or unclear processes. Issues such as these disrupt a client’s business and quietly erode trust.
In short, churn often results from invisible neglect, not visible dissatisfaction.
The First 90 Days Matter Most
Most client issues surface early in the relationship, usually within the first 30 to 90 days. That’s when engagement (or detachment) takes root.Before we could begin to fix the problem, we had to take a deep look at our own processes and our relationship with clients.
We understood that we had to create a client success mindset across the organization.
This meant more than just reacting to issues on a top level – we had to take a deep dive into the reasons for churn and create repeatable processes that would both stop the problems from happening, and enable us to fix them when they did.
One of our most successful processes is the 90-day Client Success Program, designed to help clients start strong:
- A series of webinars, welcome calls and emails that guides clients step by step.
- The first message literally says, “I have a virtual office, now what?”
- A Welcome Letter that, if undeliverable, alerts us to potential setup issues.
This proactive approach ensures clients not only understand what they’ve purchased but also see how it supports their business goals.
Removing Friction Before it Leads to Churn
As we refined our Client Success model over time, the team mapped out common friction points that led to drop-offs:
USPS Compliance
- Roughly 10–15% of clients left during the USPS 1583 document stage.
- Solution: Alliance developed Verified, an automated compliance tool that simplifies verification, and trained its own in-house team of notaries to streamline the ID verification process.
Meeting Room Bookings
- Clients struggled with disconnected systems.
- Booking space required manual intervention that was reliable, but slow. Confirmations routinely took 10+ hours.
- Solution: Alliance developed an instant booking platform and mobile app. Clients can now book space and receive an automated confirmation instantly, with fewer emails and human intervention.
Mail Management
- Clients needed predictable communication to know when they had mail waiting. Constantly calling to check for mail is time-consuming and frustrating.
- Solution: Alliance developed Delivered, a mail notification app ensuring clients receive quick and reliable updates as soon as mail arrives.
Each new system removes friction, creates consistency, and makes it easier for clients to stay.
Consistency Beats Heroics
Hospitality in the coworking world isn’t just about friendly service – it’s about reliability.
Consistency builds trust, and trust drives retention.
As Juan and Alex emphasized, “Consistency doesn’t happen by chance, it has to be designed, tracked, and reinforced.”
The data speaks for itself:
- Clients who completed onboarding stayed 90+ days longer.
- Clients using the Delivered mail tool stayed 75 days longer.
- Company-wide churn dropped from 5% to 3.5%, and that improvement held steady for two years.
Final Takeaway
When flexible workspace operators focus on client success, consistency, and removing friction, they don’t just reduce churn – they grow revenue.
Retention isn’t just good service. It’s a growth strategy.
Want to learn how Alliance helps operators turn retention into revenue? Reach out to our Partner Development team to explore how we can help: alex.garza@alliancevirtualoffices.com
+1 (725) 226-4873
Interested in partnering with Alliance? Let’s work together to maximize center revenue, streamline operations, and create more company value. Get started here.
