Top 5 early signals your B2B customer is about to churn

Imagine opening your inbox on a Monday morning to find that the account you spent 18 months nurturing is “going in a different direction.”

If that scene makes your stomach drop, you’re not alone. A well-cited Bain & Company study shows that lifting retention by just five percentage points can boost profits anywhere from 25 % to 95 %—but only if you detect trouble before it hardens into a cancellation notice.

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Written by

Chad Superman

Read time

4 min

Below are the earliest red-flag behaviours most common in manufacturing, distribution, and other supply-chain-heavy verticals, each paired with a quick no-software-required game plan.

1. A quiet dip in consumption

When a Midwestern auto-parts supplier saw its weekly pallet orders fall from 42 to 31, the account rep chalked it up to “summer slowdown.” A month later the buyer admitted they were trial-running a cheaper offshore casting line.

Why it matters
Usage drop-offs almost always precede formal RFPs—your customer is testing alternatives or trimming spend.

Try this tomorrow

Export 90 days of order history into a single spreadsheet.
Add a conditional-format rule: highlight the row if volume is ≥ 15 % below that customer’s own average.
When the cell turns red, schedule a value check-in call—no slides, just questions: “Something shift in your production plan?”