What is churn rate? Churn rate refers to the number of students that discontinue their relationship with your studio between a specific period. 

How to measure: determine the time period you want to measure (monthly, quarterly, annually, or a specific term) then gather starting and ending students counts. 

Formula: Number of customers lost, divided by number of customers at the beginning of the period, multiplied by 100. 

For example: If you start with 500 students and lose 50 in that period, your churn rate will be 50 ➗ 500 ✖️ 100 = 10%

Calculate your churn rate in different programs. Recreational vs competitive, or teens/juniors vs preschoolers. Is it in one program, or sprinkled throughout? 

When you continuously track and monitor your churn rate, you can identify trends and patterns and properly address it. This also gives you the proper data for benchmarking! This helps you assess how you’re performing, identify areas for improvement, and set realistic targets for reducing churn. 

It can be extremely discouraging when you have a high churn rate, but ignoring it will not solve the issue, just like ignoring your finances.

Remember, a higher churn rate may be due to the state of the industry, not your studio. Benchmarking will show you that! 

Another aspect of this is that It costs less to keep a student than to gain oneUsing the data you collect to improve retention is a big win. Happy customers tell others about their experience, and that is money you’re not spending on gaining new students, and loyalty being built towards your brand. 

The first step to tracking any metric is keeping good records. From there, you’ll have the tools that you need to make wise decisions towards growth. 

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