Plan a Renewal and Retention Strategy
Customer Experience · 1–2 weeks · Intermediate
The job
Proactively design the renewal experience so customers choose to stay, not feel trapped.
What the sponsor gets
Each canvas and map from this playbook — Persona Canvas, Jobs-To-Be-Done Canvas, Assumption Map, Experiment Canvas, Journey map — exports as a PDF, or as PowerPoint on Pro, straight from the session, and the whole run exports as one PowerPoint for the sponsor. Nothing is redrawn.
The method
Analyse churn patterns and renewal data
Pull renewal rates by segment, tenure, and contract value. Identify when customers churn (at renewal vs mid-contract), why they leave (exit survey data, cancellation reasons), and which segments retain best.
Tip: Segment by "chose to leave" vs "failed to renew" — active churn and passive churn have entirely different root causes and solutions.
Profile the at-risk customer
Create a Persona canvas for the customer segment most likely to churn. Understand their goals, frustrations, and what "value realised" looks like from their perspective.
Tip: Interview 5 customers who recently renewed and 5 who did not — the contrast reveals what tips the decision.
Map the renewal journey
Create a Renewal Journey map from 90 days before renewal through to the decision point and beyond. Map the touchpoints, communications, value reminders, and emotional curve the customer experiences.
Tip: The renewal decision is not made at the renewal date — it is made across the preceding 90 days through accumulated experience. Map the whole window.
Understand the ongoing job to be done
Create a JTBD canvas focused on why customers stay, not just why they bought. The job that drove the initial purchase may differ from the job that drives renewal.
Tip: Customers renew because of ongoing value delivered, not because of the original sale — if the job has shifted and you have not shifted with it, they will leave.
Map retention assumptions
Identify the assumptions behind your current retention approach — that customers use the product regularly, that they see the value, that the relationship manager matters, that price is secondary. Plot by importance and certainty.
Tip: The most dangerous retention assumption is "our customers are happy because they have not complained" — silence is not satisfaction.
Design retention interventions
Create Experiment Canvases for 3 proactive retention interventions to test before the next renewal cycle. Consider value reviews, health scores, executive engagement, and expansion conversations.
Tip: The best retention intervention is not a discount at renewal time — it is a value conversation 60 days before.
Build the retention playbook and metrics dashboard
Package the renewal journey, intervention experiments, and health scoring into an operational playbook for the customer success team. Define the metrics dashboard: renewal rate, net revenue retention, customer health score, and time-to-value.
Tip: Make renewal rate a leading indicator on the board dashboard — by the time it drops, you have already lost the customers who would have told you something was wrong 6 months ago.
The canvases and maps
- Persona Canvas
- Goals, frustrations, behaviours, motivations and needs side by side, so the person you are designing for is specific enough to disagree about.
- Jobs-To-Be-Done Canvas
- Functional, emotional and social jobs sit apart from pain points and desired outcomes, so the team describes the progress people want rather than the features it plans.
- Assumption Map
- Assumptions plotted by importance and certainty, so the leaps of faith that need testing first stand apart from the safe bets.
- Experiment Canvas
- Hypothesis, design, metrics and success criteria come before results and the decision, so the goalposts are written down before anyone sees the data.
- Journey map
- Stages run across and lanes run beneath them, so the experience reads in the order people live it and each low point lines up with what causes it.
What it doesn't do
It doesn't run the room for you or decide for the client. The steps, canvases and duration are a starting point you adapt; the judgement stays yours.