The first 90 days are critical for customer retention

The first 90 days of a new subscription are the most critical period for long-term customer retention. A customer's lifetime value is often set in stone during this initial "onboarding" phase. If they have a positive experience and successfully integrate the service into their lives, they are likely to stay for years. If they have a poor experience or fail to engage, they are highly likely to churn.

During this sensitive period, customers are:

• Highly Engaged: They are excited about their new purchase and expect a high level of interaction.
• In "Switch Mode": They are actively changing their old habits and are open to forming new ones around your service.
• Most Likely to Defect: If the initial experience is confusing, frustrating, or fails to deliver on its promise, they will quickly abandon the service before they become "bedded in."

The Goal of Onboarding

The primary goal of the onboarding process is to fight customer inertia. You have a narrow window to break their old habits and make your service an indispensable part of their routine. This means you must:

• Manufacture a "Wow" Experience: Deliver a quick, early win that demonstrates the value of the subscription and motivates the customer to invest more time in learning it.
• Over-communicate: New subscribers welcome frequent communication. Use this period to educate them and guide them toward the key features that will make the service sticky.
• Track 90-Day Markers: Instead of waiting years to see the impact on LTV, identify leading indicators of success (e.g., "has the user embedded the code and generated 5 reports?") that can be measured within the first 90 days to predict long-term loyalty.

As research from the banking industry shows, and as subscription companies like HubSpot have proven, a well-designed onboarding experience can dramatically reduce churn and triple the lifetime value of a customer.