Churn Rate
The percentage of customers who stop doing business with you over a given period.
Churn rate is the share of customers lost in a period. If you started with 200 customers and 40 did not return, churn for that period is 20%. It is the mirror of retention rate: retention 80% means churn 20%.
It matters because churn is invisible in most walk-in businesses. A subscription business sees a cancellation; a cafe or a salon simply stops seeing a face and rarely notices when. Example: a gym that tracks visits sees that members who have not attended for six weeks rarely come back, and can act before then.
Churn is different from a slow period. A customer who visits less often has not churned until they stop entirely, and the period you measure over changes the number. Define the period first, then measure.
A loyalty program makes churn measurable because joined customers have a visit record. With Loyal-T Cards, inactivity reminders are a supported communication where configured, sent by your team to cardholders whose recorded visits have stopped.
Related terms
Customer Retention Rate
The percentage of customers from an earlier period who are still customers at the end of a later period.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The total revenue a business can expect from one customer over the whole period they remain a customer.
Repeat Customer
A customer who has bought from the same business more than once.