Written by Michael Gillespie
In this Issue:
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Most members don’t just cancel. They drift away. Quietly. Slowly. Almost unnoticeably, until you can’t win them back.”
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I love eating at Chipotle…
I’ve been a regular customer for fifteen years. And there’s an interesting fact that I’ve been thinking about lately…
Their menu has remained largely the same over that fifteen years.
And yet I keep going back.
Keep this idea in your back pocket as your read today’s issue.
Let’s dive in.
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When I see members disengage, it rarely looks like frustration or anger. Rather, it looks like silence.
There’s no dramatic exit. No heated email. Instead, there’s a gradual quieting—like a conversation that slowly trails off. One missed login turns into two. One unopened email becomes dozens. It’s a voluntary checking out process that’s painfully slow and essentially undetectable to most operators.
This is the "slow fade," and it’s one of the most dangerous patterns inside most memberships.
You see, It’s not that your members are unhappy with your product. Chances are, it’s quite the opposite.
But the truth is that most memberships aren’t designed to maintain member momentum: the frequency and ease by which members are guided toward consuming the content you want them to consume.
Members need extreme guidance on how to navigate and progress through the product you’ve worked so hard to build. As operators, we often assume that our members will automatically know how to interact with our product upon signing up - because we’re the ones who are in it, building it, tweaking it and refining it.
The operator needs no user manual - but members do.
I can tell you that when members aren’t continuously provided with the next step to take, they will spend no time looking for it.
And they begin drift.
The longer they drift, the harder it becomes harder to re-engage them. Without timely intervention, this disconnection leads to the great fading event.
This fade is often the result of silent friction: too many options, unclear pathways, or lack of reinforcement.
None of these things will trigger a complaint, but all of them create a drag on your program.
This is precisely why I love Chipotle. There aren’t too many options, the server guides me down the line and it takes less than 60 seconds to build my bowl. It’s a low-friction experience that hasn’t had to evolve much - because it’s simple and effective at leaving no opportunity to drift.
(And the food is good too.)
The best memberships fight the fade and prevent member drift by designing for this type of momentum. They keep the line moving, serving up options that are few, but high in quality. And they deliver an experience that’s so stubbornly predictable that it can be counted on - day after day, year after year.
That means clear progress cues, frictionless navigation, and signals that remind members that they’re on track and headed to the intended destination.
The most dangerous phase of disengagement isn’t the cancellation. It’s the silence that occurs before it.
📌 Resource: Use this proven guide to address member drift and to design your membership to prevent the slow fade.
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