What Helped Me Connect to Customers
In a growing business, one of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned is this: connection starts with understanding.
When you know who your customers are, why they stay, and why they leave, you’re in a much better position to serve them, grow with them, and sometimes even support them through tough times.
Understanding churn and growth
Not all customers are the same. Some will churn quickly—maybe because they were never the right fit, or because circumstances changed. Others will stick with you, grow, and become true advocates.
The key is learning to spot the difference:
Who is churning, and why?
What characteristics do those customers have?
What churn is preventable, and what isn’t?
Who are the “sticky” customers that expand their usage and drive growth—and how do we find more of them?
Making customers visible every day
To keep this top of mind, I created customer placemats based on segmentation. These were visually designed and displayed on a loop on a TV in the office—side by side with key partner placemats.
Each placemat included:
The business they’re in (using their website “About” page as a quick primer)
How long they’ve been a customer
What products they’ve purchased
Where they’re based
Sure, your CRM will always have more detail. But seeing customers visibly and frequently helped keep them real, not abstract.
Staying close to customer news
Keeping an eye on the news for your customers adds another layer of connection. Sending a note when they land positive coverage creates a great experience. And when they’re struggling? That’s when you can really show up—whether it’s allowing smaller payments, applying a temporary discount, or even providing services at reduced or no cost. Those small gestures build trust that lasts.
Knowing the people behind the business
It isn’t just about companies—it’s about people. Building personas for the key contacts—what matters to them, how they like to communicate, what their priorities are—helps teams engage more effectively.
Customer journey mapping
Another useful tool is the customer journey map—visualizing what happens to the customer at each stage of their lifecycle. HubSpot explains three reasons why these maps are so valuable:
They align teams across the business, ensuring everyone sees the customer experience consistently.
They uncover friction—moments where customers feel pain or confusion—so you can address them.
They boost loyalty by ensuring every stage feels smooth, connected, and intentional.
For creating these, Canva has great persona and journey map templates that make it easy to present them in a way people will actually use.
Get onsite, not just online
If possible, visit your customers. Not just the sales team, but engineers, product managers, and even finance staff. Seeing the customer’s world firsthand is eye-opening and builds empathy. Customers will always share more in person than in a survey. You might even make it a KPI for every employee to attend at least one site visit a year.
Purpose ties it all together
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of a unifying tagline or saying inside the business. At one company I worked with, we had a phrase that reminded us daily: what we were building was making a real difference. It tied our values, communication, and decisions back to a shared purpose.
The takeaway: Connecting with customers isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s a growth engine. It’s about making them visible, celebrating their wins, supporting them through challenges, and always remembering there are people behind the logos.
