Client churn autopsy

Applies after a client has given notice or gone quiet and not renewed. Produces the autopsy and a verdict on whether to pursue them later.

The play

1. Read the engagement from the start before asking anyone what happened. The shared channel, the call notes, the reports that went out. Memory a week after a loss reorganises itself around whoever is least at fault, and the record does not.

2. Write down the stated reason exactly as the client gave it. Budget, a reorg, bringing it in house, a change of priorities. Keep it, and treat it as a data point rather than the answer, because the stated reason is the one that is easiest for both sides to say out loud.

3. Find the turn. There is almost always a specific week where the engagement stopped mattering to them: a champion left, a quarter went badly on their side, a deliverable landed late and the tone changed after it. Name the week and what happened in it.

4. Separate the three causes that get conflated:

   • The firm underdelivered. Say so plainly, with what and when.
   • The firm delivered and nobody internally could see it. A different problem with a different fix, and the most common one.
   • Nothing was wrong with the work and their world changed. Real, and the version most likely to be winnable back later.

5. Check what the firm knew and when. Was there a signal in the record that nobody acted on. Three check-ins with the same blocker, a report that went unanswered twice, a sponsor who stopped replying. The answer is usually yes, and that signal is the one worth wiring into how the firm runs.

6. Name what would have caught it, specifically, and whether it is worth doing for every client or just for accounts that look like this one.

7. Give the win-back verdict: not worth it, worth a check-in in six months, or worth a call now. If it is worth something later, write what has to be different before reaching out and the one sentence that would open it.

8. Record the pattern against prior losses. One churn is an anecdote. Three with the same turn is the actual finding, and it is usually about how the firm sells rather than how it delivers.

What good looks like

• First thing I check that most people skip: whether the champion was still there at the end. Half the losses I have looked at are not a work problem at all, they are a sponsor leaving and nobody noticing they had no second relationship in the account.
• The mediocre version: writing down the reason the client gave, filing it under budget, and moving on. It costs nothing in the moment and it means the same loss happens again next year.
• I know it is right when the autopsy names a specific week. If the cause is spread evenly across the whole engagement, the real cause has not been found yet.
• Second test: somebody in the firm disagrees with it. An autopsy everyone nods at has usually landed on the comfortable answer.
• Red flag: the conclusion is that the client was difficult. Sometimes true, almost never useful, and it ends the investigation exactly where it should start.

Rules

• MUST read the engagement record before collecting anyone's recollection.
• MUST record the client's stated reason verbatim and treat it as separate from the cause.
• MUST identify a specific point where the engagement turned.
• MUST distinguish underdelivery from invisible delivery from external change.
• MUST state what signal existed in the record and when.
• MUST give a win-back verdict with a condition attached.
• MUST compare against prior losses for a pattern.
• NEVER accept the stated reason as the finding.
• NEVER conclude the client was difficult and stop there.