Customer Retention

cj · 03-24-2005

Quote:

Originally posted by SykkBoy@Mar 24 2005, 03:20 AM
We've done things like adding a voting system and little interactive things as well as some new things we'll be rolling out soon. So what if it only adds 10% to the bottom line, that's 10% we don't feel like pissing off to someone else.

Something we've done as well that's been a little more successful is only offering partial access to our members area for trial members. They have to upgrade to a full membership to see everything (they'll still automatically renew/upgrade after their trial period though). Maybe this has cost us a couple "join and forgets" but we also have a low enough chargeback ratio that we'll soon be using our own merchant account.

It's also amazing how many accounts we've saved by simply answering emails where users had simple video player issues and other things that had they not gotten an answer, would have lead them to cancel (they sure as hell won't voluntarily stick around a video site where they can't see the videos). Even if that saves 5% of members, who would turn down 5%, especially with today's margins?

3 really good points ..... all of which are used by mainstream in the most basic of business plans.

interactivity with the customer
holding back the gold
education/support

its an awful lot of work though for 10% .... there's at least several weeks of programming, support staff needed more than a few hours a day and a commitment to updating content ...

it seems profit margins in this biz have finally got so low that we are all having to add a lot more thought and effort to our sites to scrape together every % of profit possible.

i've been wondering for at least 2 years if its even worth it anymore ... on some of the sites I have not touched in a while, the profit margins became so low that my family's restaurant in its worst period was making more profit.

is there a point at which we will be trying too hard to keep a customer beyond where the margins make it worth it because we are determined to make this porn paysite business model work for a little longer?