I was on a call recently with an HVAC business owner who was burning through $8k/mo on ads.
"I need more leads," he told me, frustrated that revenue was flat despite the ad spend.
But when we pulled the numbers, the real problem jumped out:
For every 2 new maintenance contracts he signed, 1 existing customer was quietly canceling service.
Think about it - at $200/mo per maintenance contract, losing just 10 customers meant $24k in annual recurring revenue walking out the door.
Meanwhile, he was spending $96k a year trying to replace them.
Leads problem? Or a retention problem disguised as a leads problem?
This is one of the most common - and expensive - traps for a growing business.
Most are focused on generating more leads (and understandably so - growth often feels like a numbers game). But if you're not also looking at what's happening after the sale? You might be missing the bigger opportunity.
Keeping a customer is almost always more profitable than chasing a new one.
And yet, retention rarely gets the same level of attention - or budget - as lead gen.
For this HVAC business, just improving customer loyalty could've meant an extra $24k in recurring revenue... without spending a single extra dollar on ads.
So if revenue feels stuck, or your marketing isn't getting the lift you expected, it might be worth asking:
- Are we keeping the customers we worked hard to earn?
- Do we know why someone might choose not to renew or return?
- What small shifts could improve the experience after the sale?
Answering these questions used to mean hours of manually sifting through survey responses, support tix, and cancellation notes to find the patterns.
Today, you can get a clear signal in under 15-min. Use AI to act as your personal data analyst, spotting the patterns hidden in the day-to-day feedback from your customers.
The Customer Signal Prompt
Gather a handful of recent customer emails, support tix, or survey responses - especially from clients who have canceled or expressed frustration. Don't worry about cleaning them up. Just copy the raw text.
Now, open ChatGPT or Gemini and paste this exact prompt:
Act as our company’s Chief Customer Officer. I am providing you with raw, unstructured feedback from several of our customers. My goal is to understand the root cause of customer churn and dissatisfaction.
Your task:
1. Analyze the following customer feedback for sentiment (Positive, Neutral, Negative).
2. Identify the top 3 recurring themes or complaints.
3. For each theme, extract one direct quote that powerfully illustrates the problem.
4. Based on these themes, suggest one specific, actionable improvement we could make to our post-purchase experience.
Here is the feedback: [Paste the raw text from your customer emails, surveys, or notes here.]
The goal?
A simple system to turn anecdotal feedback into actionable strategy, allowing you to build a predictable, premium experience that makes your best customers stay.
That's all for this week :)
See ya,
Dani