Ghosted

Idea in brief

Customers rarely leave a bank, insurer or health provider in a single moment. They have a problem, ask about fees, use the product less or move their money out. Then they go. To find out how much of that a provider could see, and whether anyone acted on it, Lorikeet surveyed 1,000 US adults who had chosen to leave a fintech, insurance or health provider in the last 12 months.

Key findings

Methodology

Finding 01Customers take weeks to leave

72% took a week or longer between first thinking about leaving and leaving. 40% took more than a month.

Few customers leave on impulse: only 7% left the same day.

Finding 02They show it

79% did something their provider could see before they left

The most common signals were quiet ones: using the product less, asking about fees or how to cancel and moving money out or stopping autopay. 59% did both: they took a week or longer, and they left a signal along the way.

Customers who got in touch about a problem often had to keep trying. 56% of them contacted their provider more than once about the same problem. 30% had to explain their situation again each time.

Finding 03Almost none heard from their provider in time

87% weren't contacted before they decided to leave. 64% never heard from their provider at all.

Finding 04When providers do get in touch, what they say matters

Among customers still weighing it up, 76% stayed when their provider fixed a problem. 40% stayed when it tried to sell them something else.

Among the 702 people who had seriously thought about leaving, 41% of those contacted first stayed, against 26% of those who weren't. That gap shrinks to almost nothing when we compare people who had got equally far in their decision. People who were contacted first were more often still early, only thinking about it or looking around. The survey can't tell us whether getting in touch kept them early, or whether providers reached people who happened to be there.

What the provider said made a clearer difference. Among people still thinking about leaving or looking around, fixing a problem was the only kind of contact with a higher stay rate than no contact at all (76% vs 61%). Trying to sell something else had the lowest (40%).

Bases for this finding are small, so treat the gaps as directional.

Finding 05Customers say one fix would have kept them

84% named one thing that would have kept them. Most picked something the provider already had.

The top answer was fixing the problem the first time (19%), followed by being told about a cheaper plan or better fit the provider already had (16%). Of the people who named a fix, 72% picked something within the provider's reach. 26% wanted a matched price or a better product.

65% of people who named a fix say they would definitely or probably have stayed if their provider had done it before they decided.

Insurance customers were the most likely to name a cheaper plan the insurer already had (28%). Fintech and health customers were the most likely to name fixing the problem the first time (20% and 21%).

Finding 06Customers feel they only get attention on the way out

84% say companies only pay attention to them when they try to leave. 87% say their old provider treated them like every other customer.

We asked people to choose between paired statements. 54% agreed strongly that companies only pay attention when they try to leave. 61% agreed strongly that their old provider treated them like every other customer.

Most customers (58%) don't think their provider could have known they were unhappy. Yet 79% did something their provider could see.

Finding 07The revenue that walked out the door

We estimate the average customer who left took about $826 in revenue with them that could have been kept

For each respondent we multiplied what they paid a year, how much longer they say they would have stayed, the chance the fix would have worked, and whether the provider could have caught them in time (they took a week or longer, left a signal and weren't contacted before deciding). We used the high end of each band. Open-ended answers count at their lower limit: $500 or more a month counts as $500, and more than 5 years counts as 5 years.

The average is $826 across the 765 respondents who paid something and gave an amount, or $658 if customers who paid nothing directly are counted as zero. Most respondents contribute nothing to it. A small group of high-spending customers who say they would have stayed for years make up most of the total. For a provider that loses 10,000 customers a year, $826 each would be about $8.3m. This is an illustration of the maths, not a forecast. A provider's own revenue per customer gives a better figure.

Bank accounts and investing apps undercount, because customers there often pay no fees directly.

In their own words

We asked everyone to finish the sentence "I would have stayed if they had just...". About 4 in 10 answers mentioned price, fees or rates. Most of the rest were about service: being reachable, listening, fixing the problem and getting in touch.

What leaders should do now

Five priorities follow from the data.