Deliberatively Drive Activation

Most companies do see churn coming. They just don’t take the signals seriously.

Customers aren’t magically embedding your tool into their business processes after onboarding. Momentum and friction are working against you. If you don’t deliberately drive activation, you’re leaving adoption to chance. And chance is a pretty solid churn strategy.

A recent SaaStr post (link in the comments) is right on: if fewer than 90% of customers activate, you’ve already planted the seeds of churn. But activation isn’t just about usage. It’s also about customers experiencing the business outcome they expected when they bought.

Where I’d add nuance is as follows:

👉 Activation as both metric and motion

The metric is simple: how many customers achieve that first value milestone?

The motion is harder: you need a repeatable process that walks different customer types through the specific steps to get there. SMB vs. enterprise? They don’t just differ in contract size, they also differ in how much change management, executive alignment, and process adaptation it takes to truly activate.

👉 Operationalize activation

That means building plays, roles, and accountabilities that don’t stop at onboarding. It means mapping the customer’s business processes and embedding your product, not just training on features. It means having clear success criteria and holding teams accountable for getting customers there, regardless of obstacles.

👉 Listen early

Pair activation with health scoring. If usage drops and if goals aren’t being met, you have warning lights before churn hits your retention forecast.

The biggest blind spot I see when advising CEOs is the assumption that “usage will come.” It doesn’t. Not without a designed and disciplined activation motion.

Silent churn isn’t silent, and surprise churn isn’t surprising. Just stop ignoring the signals.

Activation isn’t one-time. Too many think of this as “done” at “go-live.”. In reality, re-activation happens throughout the customer lifecycle. New stakeholders join, business priorities shift, and product capabilities expand. If you don’t continuously reset and guide customers to “next value,” you create churn risk.