Who really owns churn? Our discussion on ‘The Growth Signal’ podcast:

Jeff Moss, Founder of Expansion Playbooks, was recently featured on The Growth Signal podcast, where he discussed customer success, churn ownership, and cross-functional alignment. In this episode, Jeff breaks down why Customer Success is uniquely positioned to solve churn—not through blame, but through objective customer truth—and how CS leaders can drive better outcomes across the company. If you care about retention, expansion, and building durable growth systems, this is a must-listen.

Some key takeaways:

1. Who owns churn in a SaaS organization?
Customer Success owns churn reduction. While multiple teams influence outcomes, Customer Success is best positioned to identify root causes and coordinate the cross-functional actions needed to reduce churn.

2. Does owning churn mean Customer Success is at fault for churn?
Not necessarily. Churn may not always be Customer Success’s fault, but it is their responsibility to solve because they have the closest visibility into customer needs and outcomes.

3. Why is Customer Success best positioned to solve churn?
Customer Success has direct exposure to customer goals, adoption behavior, onboarding quality, and outcome realization, making it the only function able to connect signals across the full customer lifecycle.

4. What is the difference between a “happy” customer and a “successful” customer?
A happy customer may like the product, but a successful customer achieves measurable outcomes. Retention is driven by success, not sentiment.

5. What should Customer Success analyze to reduce churn effectively?
Customer Success should study successful customers—not just churned ones—to identify shared outcomes, behaviors, and prerequisites that consistently lead to retention and expansion.

6. How should Customer Success work with Sales to reduce churn?
Customer Success should provide Sales with objective evidence on which customer profiles retain, what problems they’re trying to solve, and which outcomes must be committed to before closing.

7. Why do companies struggle to reduce churn long-term?
Many organizations rely on emotional reactions and scapegoating instead of objective analysis, which prevents systemic fixes and reinforces finger-pointing.

8. What is the first step to aligning Sales, Product, and Customer Success?
Establish a shared, objective understanding of what makes customers successful by interviewing a core set of successful customers and documenting their outcomes and actions.