Definition
Churn
Churn is the loss of customers over time. In hospitality it is rarely announced — nobody cancels a café — so it shows up as a regular whose visits stretch further and further apart until they stop.
Also called attrition, lapsed customers.
It is a gap, not an event
Because there is no cancellation, churn in a café has to be defined by you: someone who used to come weekly and has not been in for six weeks is gone in every way that matters. Picking that threshold is the useful work — too short and your list is full of people on holiday, too long and you find out months after there was anything to do.
You cannot see it on paper
This is the one thing a punch card genuinely cannot do. A shoebox of half-punched cards will never tell you who has stopped coming, because there is no record connecting a card to a person or a date. It is the strongest argument for a digital programme, well ahead of convenience or fraud.
What to do with the list
Less than most software will encourage you to. A lapsed-customer list is valuable precisely because it is small and specific, and the temptation is to blast it with a discount, which mostly reaches people who were coming back anyway. The higher-return version is usually a single well-timed, personal reason to return — and knowing the list exists at all is most of the benefit.
Questions
- What counts as a churned customer in a café?
- Whatever gap is abnormal for that customer. Somebody who came four times a week and has not been in for a fortnight is a stronger signal than somebody monthly who has missed one visit.
- Can a loyalty programme reduce churn?
- It can, but its first contribution is making churn visible. You cannot act on a departure you never notice, and most cafés have no way to notice at all.
Related terms
Repeat rate
Repeat rate is the proportion of customers who return at least once after their first visit. It is the most useful single number for judging a loyalty programme, because it measures the behaviour the programme is meant to change.
Customer lifetime value
Customer lifetime value is the total profit a customer generates across the entire period they remain a customer. It reframes a loyalty reward as an investment against future visits rather than a discount on today’s.
Loyalty program
A loyalty program is an arrangement that rewards customers for coming back. In hospitality it usually takes one of two forms: stamps counted per visit toward a free item, or points accrued against how much is spent.
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