30+ Essential Customer Retention Statistics: In-Depth Analysis

Winning a new customer is exciting, but keeping them coming back is what truly drives business growth. 

That’s because loyal customers don’t just stick around – they buy more, engage more, and can eventually become advocates for your brand.  

In this blog, we’ll explore key customer retention statistics to help you understand user expectations, reduce churn, and build long-term loyalty.

These insights will highlight industry benchmarks and common retention challenges, so you can identify proven strategies to boost engagement and satisfaction.

5 general customer retention statistics

1. On average, existing customers spend 67% more than new customers

Source: BIA Advisory

2. More than 70% of Millennials are loyal to their preferred brands while the number drops to 66% for Gen Z

Source: Customer Loyalty Index 2024, SAP Emarsys

3. A 5% increase in customer retention can result in a 25% uplift in profit

Source: Bain & Company

4. Loyal customers are 70% more likely to make repeat purchases

Source: Adobe

5. Around 23% of average customer churn is caused by a poor onboarding experience

Source: Retently

5 statistics on the impact of customer retention on profits

6. Your top 10% of customers spend 2 times more per order than the other 90%

Source: Smile.io

7. For 61% of small businesses, repeat customers account for more than half of their annual revenue

Source: BIA Advisory

8. In the beauty and cosmetics industry, customers spend 30% more per order after shopping with a brand for six months and 45% more after 36 months

Source: Smile.io

9. Repeat customers spend three times more than one-time shoppers

Source: BusinessDasher

10. Acquiring a new customer can cost 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing customer

Source: Harvard Business Review

5 customer loyalty program statistics

11. The usage of loyalty programs by customers increased by 28% in 2024.

Source: Customer Loyalty Index 2024, SAP Emarsys

12. Being part of a loyalty program influenced 83% of customers to make repeat purchases from a brand 

Source: Yotpo

13. Around 73% of customers say they adjust their spending to get additional benefits from a loyalty program.  

Source: Bond

14. 33% of customers mention special discounts and free products as the top benefits that motivate them to join a loyalty program

Source: PYMNTS

15. 72% of customers feel that loyalty programs are a part of their relationship with brands

Source: Bondbl

7 statistics on customer retention trends and behaviors

16. 52% of customers say they would go out of their way to buy from their favorite brands

Source: Zendesk

17. Around 44% of customers expect brands to offer personalized rewards based on their purchase history

Source: G2 

18. 62% of eCommerce customers won’t buy from a brand that does not offer free returns

Source: Klarna

19. 31% of global consumers switched brands because they felt that the company was lying about product performance

Source: YouGov

20. Nearly 59% of customers feel that brands have lost touch with the human element of customer experience

Source: PwC 

21. 56% of customers say never complain about a negative experience. Instead, they choose to quietly switch to a competitor

Source: Coveo

22. 70% of customers leave a company because they believe the company does not care about them

Source: SuperOffice

5 statistics on channels used for customer retention

23. 80% of small businesses use email as the primary channel for retention

Source: DemandSage

24. 63% of marketers use social media for customer retention while 42% of them rely on SEO

Source: Exploding Topics

25. Customers tend to spend around 20-40% more with brands that respond to requests or queries on social media

Source: McKinsey & Company

26. 49% of marketers use digital advertising to drive customer retention

Source: Exploding Topics

27. Companies with effective omnichannel engagement strategies retain around 89% of their customers, whereas those with weak strategies see only 33% retention

Source: Forbes

5 churn rate statistics

28. Businesses in the US lose around $35.3 billion per year due to consumers switching to competitors

Source: CallMiner Churn Index 2020

29. The finance/credit industry in the US has a 25% churn rate, the highest among all sectors    

Source: Statista

30. Digital Media and Entertainment industries have an average churn rate of 6.5%, while the Software industry has a churn rate of 3.5%

Source: Recurly

31. Around 67% of customer churn can be prevented if the issue or pain point is resolved at the first point of engagement

Source: HuffPost

32. Poor customer service is the reason for around 14% of average customer churn.

Source: Retently

Customer retention rates by industry

33. The average customer retention rate across all industries is 75%

Source: Exploding Topics

34. Media and professional services industries have the joint-highest customer retention rate of 84%

Source: Exploding Topics 

35. Hospitality, travel, and restaurant industries have an average customer retention rate of 55%, one of the lowest among all industries

Source: Exploding Topics

36. The IT & Software industry has a retention rate of 77%, while the retail industry has a retention rate of 63%

Source: Exploding Topics

Final thoughts

Understanding customer retention is just the first step, taking action based on real user behavior is what drives long-term success. 

With VWO, you can use heatmaps and session recordings to analyze user journeys and watch exactly how they interact with your platform.

Moreover, you can use on-page surveys to gather actual feedback from users to understand more about their expectations, pain points, and challenges.

Based on this qualitative feedback, you can then build strong hypotheses and run targeted experiments to build an experience that your users love.

But it doesn’t stop there—this also allows you to align experiments with your business goals, ensuring that every test moves you closer to achieving them.

By testing changes before rolling them out, you can avoid unvalidated changes that might negatively impact conversions, engagement, or retention.

This data-driven approach also helps save valuable resources. So, instead of spending time and effort on updates that your users don’t need, you can focus on making targeted changes that have a proven positive impact. 

Plus, the 40+ integrations with platforms like GA4, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Shopify enable you to easily connect VWO to your existing tech stack.   

Take a free trial or request a demo now to explore how these capabilities can help improve customer retention and reduce churn.