Honestly, my approach this year was the opposite of chasing retention. I raised prices significantly to filter out price-sensitive clients, fired a few that weren't following basic maintenance recommendations, and stopped doing multiple follow-ups when someone goes quiet. If they want to leave, I make it easy.
What I focused on instead was making it frictionless for the right clients to stay. I switched from full season prepayment — which made renewals a nightmare of phone calls and convincing — to card on file with automatic renewal. Clients self-enroll directly through my website in one step, card gets saved, and the relationship continues without me having to chase anyone.
My bet is that fewer but better clients on automatic billing will outperform a larger roster of price shoppers I have to re-sell every season.
Same
I like this approach a lot. There’s a big difference between fighting to keep every client and making it easier for the right clients to stay. Card on file with automatic renewal has been huge for us too because it removes a lot of the monthly friction and awkward follow-up.
