Why Do You GIVE Your Customer Away?

❌ Your Competitors ARE NOT STEALING your customers.
✅ Mediocre customer experience is GIVING them away.

I’ve spent years helping companies solve their “growth issues” (across many industries).

And I’ve seen the same story play out again, and again, and again.

The reality?

Most of the time, behind closed doors, we’re NOT fixing marketing.
We’re solving mass customer exodus (aka retention crises).

👉 Let me save you lots of money in wasted acquisition spend.

When custmers FLEE, executives panic.

They blame:
→ Competition.
→ The economy.
→ Market trends.
→ The alignment of the planets.

Basically, EVERYTHING except the actual problem.

So, what’s the real problem?

Most of the time, your customers aren’t leaving because of *insert whatever external factor.*
They’re leaving because YOU’VE FAILED to give them a reason to stay.

They aren’t running TO.
They are running FROM.

The pattern is painfully undeniable:

90% of companies are bleeding customers while obsessing over the WRONG METRICS.

They’re tracking CAC when they should be measuring experience quality (or even better, “degradation”).

Let’s talk money:
A 5% increase in retention can deliver 25-95% profit boost.

Yet where do budgets flow?
Acquisition.

Makes zero sense?
Agree.

Think about it:

Every customer who walks away takes their entire lifetime value with them.
That’s often 5-25× your acquisition investment – walking out the door.

Painful? It should be.

Now, why this madness?

Most sales & marketing executives are incentivzed on acquisition, not retention.

Wrong incentives → wrong priorities → wrong results.

The market reality is simple:

Today’s customers have 0 tolerance for average experiences.
And they don’t have to.

→ Their options? Infinite.
→ Their patience? Non-existent.
→ Switching costs? Minimal.

Their LOYALTY?
Earned DAILY or lost forever.

So what now?

Stop the competitor obsession.
Stop the acquisition addiction.

Take 30% of that budget and FIX your damn experience!

Because your retention problem isn’t “market conditions.”

It’s YOU.

👉 Fix it or keep the EXPENSIVE cycle of churn.

But let’s start by using the right words:

Your customer are NOT being stolen.
They’re making rational economic decisions.
Just like YOU should be.

Time to choose differently.

To your success,

Gaetan Portaels

Original publication date — March, 2025 (HERE)