Is churn normal in B2B industries?

B2B relationships have a reputation for being long and stable.

A common belief is, companies find a supplier they like — equipment, taxes, SaaS — and they stick with them. Because switching stinks.

But is this true?

@CustomerGauge gathered a bunch of churn & retention data by industry. And it turns out churn seems to be a much more normal part of B2B business.

It ranges from 11% for utilities up to 56% for wholesale supplies.

So to paraphrase The Byrds,

"To every thing, churn, churn, churn

There is replacement, churn, churn, churn"

Now, this is the median churn per industry. Some brands will have low churn, and some will have high churn.

But to see how you're doing, you shouldn't just compare to the industry average.

You should also control for "weight class", because small brands almost always have higher churn and less "loyalty" than big brands.

This is the Double Jeopardy law well-documented by the @EhrenbergBass Institute for Marketing Science.

Then given those norms for your industry & market share, you can see if you have a 'real' problem, or if you have normal everyday unavoidable typical churn.

So 3 lessons:

1. Realize that churn is as natural as lint in the laundry.

2. Figure out your industry's average churn rate.

3. Assess your churn given your industry AND your market share ("weight class".)