Customer Retention

Burton's Broken Zippers

By
Steve Hazelton
October 22, 2024
5 min read

Last year, I bought a pair of ski pants and the zipper fell out on the first chair lift. I called Burton, and they offered an exchange. New pants, first chair, same problem. Support informed me that I was required to return the pants for repair. The repairs would be completed after ski season. For the inconvenience, Burton offered me a 20% discount on my next purchase of skiwear. The next time I am in the market for skiwear that I can't wear during ski season, I will use that coupon.

I started my first business over 25 years ago. Since that day, I have lived in an almost constant state of fear that somehow, somewhere, things would get so broken that we'd treat a customer like this.

Let's be clear, no one who runs a business wants stuff like this to happen. Yet, it happens all the time.

If you run a software company, your engineering team will have usage tools and server logs to tell you when your product is "down" or running slowly. They can report which features are being used and which ones aren't. You'll learn that certain features in your product cost more to run than others, maybe because of a bad query, code, or something else. And you'll know what needs to be upgraded.

However, every time a customer contacts a business, they are "using" (or "testing") your product. If you sell ski pants, your product is ski pants, and your customer service team. If you sell software, your product is your tech and your customer service.

Yet, your customer-facing teams have very poor usage data, if any at all. Which feature of our service gets used the most (billing, success, support)? What are the common themes? Is one group working more effectively than the others? Does a team need an upgrade? 

(BTW, what costs more, your AWS bill or your payroll?)

The reason your customer-facing teams don't have usage data is because this data is "unstructured," and it is everywhere. Imagine if your engineering team needed to check 50 email inboxes, 1,000 phone recordings, a CRM, and a ticket system to get your product usage statistics. 

That's where your customer-facing teams are today. Until you can get answers from these systems as easily as an engineer can, you’ll continue to churn, annoy customers, and try to hire your way out of a retention problem. It won’t work.

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Integrations

Product Update! Sturdy now integrates with Jira

Joel Passen
March 10, 2025
5 min read

We’re making it easier than ever to turn customer feedback into action while saving businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. With Sturdy’s new Jira Connect, any AI-powered Signal in Sturdy can be automatically logged in Jira—helping teams capture, prioritize, and resolve issues faster than ever.

Sturdy for Jira is a Game Changer

Every team needs to know more about their customers. 

Turn customer feedback into valuable Jira content automatically. Sturdy’s AI accurately detects feature requests, bug reports, and other critical product feedback. Customizable agents then deliver this context-rich intelligence to a configurable staging area in Jira with all relevant user and account details, such as segment, ARR, and more. The content is objectively summarized automatically. From there, assigning it to an epic, task, sprint, or release is just one click.

Productivity Gains that Move the Needle

Businesses are unknowingly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on something as simple as manually logging Jira issues. A single customer-facing rep wastes nearly 87 hours annually on repetitive data entry—scaling up to a staggering $354,200 per year for a team of 100 reps. By integrating Sturdy’s AI-driven automation, businesses can reclaim thousands of hours, improve productivity, and reinvest those savings into growth and innovation—all while ensuring more accurate, real-time data flows into Jira effortlessly.

Align product teams with customer reality.

By centralizing AI-powered insights in Jira, Sturdy ensures that product and engineering teams get a complete, objective picture of what’s working, what’s broken, and what needs to be built—without relying on anecdotal feedback. Customer-reported issues appear in Jira moments after they happen, ensuring your product and engineering teams stay ahead of emerging trends and critical bugs—without the lag of traditional reporting.

Effortless setup, immediate impact.

Sturdy’s turnkey integration takes minutes to configure. Once connected, your team gains instant access to context-rich, structured feedback—helping you make faster, data-driven decisions that improve customer satisfaction.

Want to get started? Click the 'Schedule Demo' button at the top of the page.

Integrations

Product Update! Sturdy Now Analyzes Customer Slack Channels

Joel Passen
March 3, 2025
5 min read

We’re making it easier than ever for teams to tap into the power of customer conversations. With this integration, Sturdy’s AI-driven insights—trained to spot key behaviors and trends unique to your business—are now right where your team works. That means more proactive decisions, better collaboration, and a serious productivity boost.

Here’s how Sturdy works with Slack.

  • Get the right insights, right in Slack. Sturdy delivers AI-powered Signals where your team already works, flagging risks, expansion opportunities, and other key moments in real-time. No more digging through conversations—just actionable insights when you need them.

  • Stay on top of every conversation. If your team works asynchronously in Slack channels, it’s easy for important feedback to get lost. Sturdy keeps you ahead by surfacing critical insights before they slip through the cracks.

  • Act fast, not after the fact. Whether it’s a service risk, a feature request, or a potential upsell, Sturdy helps teams spot and respond to what matters—without disrupting their workflow.

Seamless sync with your tools. Sturdy doesn’t just stop at Slack. Insights discovered in customer Slack channels automatically flow into Jira, CSPs, CRMs, and other systems, ensuring the right teams get the right info—without extra work.

Customer Intelligence

He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, you’d better listen.

Steve Hazelton
February 27, 2025
5 min read

He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, you’d better listen.

Quote from C-3PO, Star Wars: A New Hope

A few days ago, I spoke to a business leader, and they asked, "How would Sturdy work for customers who never contact us?"

"Do you know who those customers are?"

"No idea."

"Would you like to?"

“Dark Customers.” It is almost impossible to source this list. Your customer might be dark to five silos, and bright in just one. 

(By the way, there is a little-known filter in the Accounts page of Sturdy that lets you sort by “Last Inbound.”  Check it out. You can see the last time any customer sent you an inbound message.)

Let’s be fair. In a recurring-revenue business, a lack of inbound contact isn’t necessarily bad. Sometimes your customers don’t feel the need to chat with you, but they like you just the same. 

But, here’s the cool thought. What should happen when a Dark Customer suddenly reaches out? 

For example, Acme Corp sends an email to your CS team for the first time in 18 months. What needs to happen next?

I would want to know. So, we’re working on that. Naming such a signal is a bit tricky, if you have ideas, let us know.

How many customers will you have to lose before you try Sturdy?

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