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Latch AI founder Alisha Esmail explains why client retention fails like a slow leak instead of a fire, how she built a churn-prediction system by hand before adding AI, and why messy CRM data has to be cleaned up first.
"It's like the leak in your basement. It's not a kitchen fire, it's not a dumpster fire, but your basement is filling with water."
Most companies are buying AI tools. Almost none of them have the data, processes, or systems in place for those tools to deliver.
The CRM is a mess. The processes aren't written down. The tribal knowledge is locked in three people's heads. Then the AI gets layered on top, and nobody understands why it doesn't work.
AI-Ready or Not is the show about fixing the foundation first.
Host Travis Scott talks with founders, operators, authors, and practitioners about how they're actually using AI. What's working. What's not. What they had to do to make it work.
New episodes every two weeks.
The Retention Leak: How AI Can Catch Churn Before It Happens
AI-Ready or Not, with Travis Scott. Guest: Alisha Esmail, founder of Latch AI.
Alisha Esmail: It's like the leak in your basement. It's not a kitchen fire, it's not a dumpster fire, but your basement is filling with water.
[Podcast intro]
Welcome to AI Ready or Not. I'm Travis Scott, founder of Rainier RevOps, and this is the show where founders and revenue leaders figure out what it actually takes to make AI work in their business. Let's do this.
Alisha Esmail: Hi, I'm Alisha Esmail, the founder of Latch AI, and I've gone from coffee to code. And so my background's in international development, which led me to start Road Coffee, which was a coffee company that worked internationally and directly with farmers around the world, creating streamlined supply chains for female farmers and a microloan program to help move them out of poverty into independence and freedom.
And now I'm helping business owners keep their clients longer and grow their business through expansion revenue.
Travis: Nice. Nice. Well, thanks for, for joining me today. I'm not sure what time zone you're in. Still, still morning for me. I think it is for you too. And so, so yeah, we, we talked a couple of weeks ago, and had a great conversation. It, it was really fascinating to learn about what you've, you've done over your career.
And, and now working in AI and, y- you know, how... You know, going from coffee to AI, what, what have been some of the, the, the similarities or kind of the bridge between, from one to the other? And, and then what has also been very, very different about it?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, a lot, a lot on both sides. So going from coffee to code, coffee to AI has been an interesting journey. I've always been a tech founder at heart. I went through the tech incubator here and won a bunch of money to create a platform around the microloans we were doing for farmers, and that was back in, in 2019, of 2020.
But then of course, COVID hit and I put that on pause to focus on my main business. And so I feel like being a tech founder has kinda always been on the trajectory for me. I would say the biggest differences is of course, like you're going from a physical product where you need to move it from a completely different country around the world all the way here to Canada, it, package it, and then redistribute it across the country versus software and AI, which is all online and it, there's no tangible product, it comes with its own set of challenges.
Travis: Yeah, exactly. And, and so what experience did you have before Latch AI in tech and, and coding, if any? What, what does your background look like there?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, so we built out a few small apps for some of the farmers we were working with to help streamline their operations and track things. A lot of things that are still done on a farm level internationally are done on pieces of paper or notepads or locked into people's brains. So we played around with that.
Then it wasn't until I started adding more AI to the coffee company that that started to really change, built an AI brain for the company and started really streamlining the workflow and creating agents to, to buy back my team's time.
Travis: Nice. And so, so yeah, running AI in a coffee company, y- you're probably one of the first to, to do that i-in that, that industry. Tell me a little bit more about, about what kinda led you to the, the, the idea, or what was the catalyst of, "Hey, I think we need to s- to streamline some things, and I think AI is, is the thing to do it"?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, the catalyst was probably just the amount of, like, manual labor that was going into some of these tasks and how much time it was taking. Especially the tasks that weren't complicated, that were pretty black and white, where software itself could, you know, help a lot, and then you add AI on top of that and it's...
You know, it doesn't have sick days, it doesn't need time off, it doesn't hit the train on the way to work. It can just deliver consistent results every time. Excuse me.
Travis: No problem. Nice. And, and were there any kind of logistical applications that you used it for with, with orders and shipping and roasting and kind of the logistics of, of all that and the operations?
Alisha Esmail: We did it more on the client side and understanding drifts, any detection on when a client might be drifting away to potentially churn, which is what leads to my current company now. And then we did it more on the predictability side. So what, what orders are coming in? What do we need for production, for inventory? Sort of thing.
Travis: A- and you mentioned something, a- and you picked it up and I was gonna mention it as well when you said churn. I- is, is that experience with your coffee company and using AI to identify churn, was that kind of a light bulb moment for creating Latch? Or how, how did that, those two similarities happen?
Alisha Esmail: I would say it was more like over time versus a light bulb moment. What, what I realized is I just took, you know, the next step and then the next step, and it was through taking the next step that showed me, oh, there's a bigger opportunity here. But it started out by figuring out the system that needs to be built.
I think one of the biggest mistakes most people make in AI right now is they just throw the kitchen sink at it, and they throw something in Claude Code and they start vibe coding, but they don't have either a real problem they're solving or they don't have a real solution. Needs to exist outside of AI.
AI just speeds it up and amplifies it and increases the value, but it doesn't solve the problem itself. So for me, I built a retention engine and a client intelligence system inside of Road, and it started as a manual system, and we did everything manually. And then to buy my time back, my team started doing it, and they would do it weekly and monthly and following up with our clients and taking each step in our process. Then we started adding in some automation to buy their time back, and then we added on the AI. So we didn't just jump to the AI, and I think that's what's actually set us up for success.
Travis: Yeah, e-exactly. And, and I think it's similar to automation, right? That, i- if you're gonna try to automate something that you haven't done yourself manually, you don't really know how it really... Like, handoffs are supposed to work and, and how it really should work, and I think you can get surprised that way.
And I was talking to someone last week kind of about a similar topic, and, a- about how there's, you know, to people who are successful using AI put a lot of time in on the f- the front end, on the development, on the specs, on kind of building it out almost on paper first before they, they build it, instead of just having an idea and jumping in and kind of building, building the plane while it's flying.
Ha- have you had similar success with that? Is that how you've kind of built your AI after doing things manually, seeing the, the bottlenecks, seeing the challenges and, and implementing it from that?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, like our philosophy is figure out the problem you're solving, find a solution, and then figure out how to do it faster or better with AI. But kind of goes back to what I was just saying about you need to know what your solution is and actually have a strategic solution, 'cause AI on its own isn't gonna save the world or solve a problem.
Travis: Mm-hmm. E-exactly.
Alisha Esmail: Want it to be solved, unless it's trained.
Travis: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And so...
Alisha Esmail: Yeah.
Travis: With, with, with Latch, you know, I think you had mentioned that it, it helps companies predict churn way before they would ever, ever notice it, right? Tell me a little bit more about how, how that works, how it's been received, once you kind of first went to market with it, and how it's going now.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah. So the way it works is, is pretty amazing. We just connect to your tools, whatever data sources you're currently using, this could be, you know, a mix of your CRM, your calendar. It could be, you know, your Stripe or payment system. Could be if you're using something like Freshdesk or Intercom for tickets.
You know, whatever software you're using, we just connect to that. We run your data through our Latch programming, and then we're categorizing all of your clients into one of four categories. And so the four categories that exist are at risk, slipping, ready, and the fourth one, which is stable.
And, you know, two out of four of those are time-sensitive windows. You got slipping that can either move to at risk or back to green. So of course, we wanna catch them while they're, while they're slipping before they get to the red. And then the second one is that expansion ready piece. So you know, a lot of people ask for that renewal or the upsell, the subscription add-on at the wrong time, right?
They'll ask when someone's just, like, in the pocket, they're good, but they're, but they're not ready to, like, expand with you or continue to grow. They're not a cheerleader yet. Or they'll ask when... This is my favorite. Basically, like, when revenue starts taking a hit and they realize they need to grow really fast and they're like, "Crap, I should, I should, you know, ask for a bunch of referrals."
And that's not necessarily the worst idea, there's just a best time to ask to get the results you're actually looking for.
Travis: Yeah, yeah. Yep, exactly.
Alisha Esmail: That's, like, a big part of how we work and, and, without getting too into the weeds. And then, yeah, it's, it's gone over really well so far, to answer your question.
Like, right now as this podcast is being recorded, we're still invite only, so we get to work with the amazing people that, you know, apply and enter on our wait list and that, that we consider might be a really good part of our early adopter program, and it's been phenomenal. We're, we're seeing some pretty big wins so far. Do, do you wanna hear about one of the...
Travis: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Alisha Esmail: Cool. So one of the cl- clinic clients that we're working with, multidisciplinary clinic, they, they started off with us and they sent out about 51% of the people that we flagged at Latch and the messages that we created, 'cause Latch doesn't just tell you, you know, who's at risk and who's slipping. We also give you the exact message to follow up with that specific person. So everything is hyper-personalized because we want clients to feel seen and heard just like the business owner does. And so this clinic, they sent out about 51% of the suggestions and the, the ideas that Latch sent their way. Out of those 51, they were able to get 77 more booked appointments that they wouldn't have gotten, that would've fallen through the cracks. What's really cool, Travis, is five of those appointments were first time appointments, so they hadn't even booked an appointment yet, and Latch helped them book in five new clients and 68 reoccurring clients that would've dropped off, which is pretty cool.
So they got their money back for the whole year in the first few weeks of...
Travis: Wow. That, that's awesome. A- and how, how does Latch work with, le- let's say a, a CRM like HubSpot? Does it embed into the CRM and kinda help draft things there and, and provide insights there, or is, does it have its own UI separate from that?
Alisha Esmail: We just connect through API. It's its own UI. It's beautiful, simple, easy to use. You log in, you see your quick dashboard of who's at risk, who's slipping, quick client intelligence, and then you can go to the health report area, and it's stacked week over week of trends that we're picking up on. It could be, you know, areas of your product that, you know, maybe people keep complaining about the one...
This one thing, and you didn't realize it. Or the same issue is coming up with a specific staff member. So it's also creating a lot of opportunity for training and bridging some of the gaps in the business that the business owner didn't previously realize.
Travis: Nice. Nice. And, and, and then with, with that, a-and kind of the implementation, your implementation of it and, and rollout of it, has there been anything that has happened or, or that you've seen through the, the, the client data that you just weren't expecting? Like trends or, you know, "Hey, this- we're seeing this happen very, you know, frequently, and we didn't expect to see that."
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, definitely. I think it's been really eye-opening, not only for us, but actually the clients we work with. So, another one of our clients, when we just did our initial onboarding and audit of their last quarter, we saw 650K they were just leaving on the table that could've been captured in the previous quarter. And so we're working with them to, you know, capture some of that revenue. In the first week, they were able to cap- capture 6K, which was pretty cool.
Travis: Nice.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah.
Travis: And do you have people coming to you? You know, how, how is like the word of mouth and, and, how is the demand shaping up right now? Are people hearing about it and coming, coming to you? Are you seeing that pick up a little bit?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, we have a growing wait list. If you wanna check us out, definitely go to the waitlist at yourlatch.com. And if you're a good fit though, we'll bump you up the line and we'd love to schedule a call. So right now we're looking for the right clients as we're building this out that we can continue to keep getting these wins for us.
Some of the ones that you just mentioned, we wanna be able to keep knocking it out of the park for more people. And, you know, the type of business that's a good fit is gonna be, you know, agencies, coaches, clinics like I mentioned. Anyone that has that repeat business model where it's, you know, it might not be a subscription necessarily, but it's that repeat business relationship.
Like your accountant or your lawyer that you're gonna use every so often, but maybe not be on like, you know, a monthly subscription like you would your groceries or your coffee.
Travis: Exactly. Exactly. And, and when we talked last time, you know, I, I, I'm in rev ops and, and I focus a lot on, on data hygiene, and especially with the AI readiness offer and framework that, that I've built. And we were talking a little bit about just how messy CRMs are, and was that something that surprised you when you started to, to get into them?
Or did you kind of expect that, to see that?
Alisha Esmail: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, it totally surprised me. I was... I still am shocked sometimes, but it's okay. Like, one thing we've been trying to do is normalize it for our clients. Like, a lot of times people, and I'm sure you've seen a lot of this, more than me, they feel really awkward about it or guilty.
Travis: Mmhmm.
Alisha Esmail: And, like, ashamed that, you know, their data's so messy and their HubSpot's a total hot mess. But you know, what we say is, like, "It's okay. We'll either help you clean it up, or we'll connect you with someone who can help you, you know, get this sorted." Think what I'm learning, though, is some of these companies, especially, like, bigger companies or SaaS companies, they've been around a long time, so the technology has changed. So they may be, you know, were with one CRM, and then they switch to another one, and then they switch to another one, and the data just gets so messy over time that kinda go into, like, a freeze mode, and they just don't even know where to start as the client. Yeah. What...
Travis: Yeah.
Alisha Esmail: See?
Travis: Yeah, I see a lot of that. It, it's, it has been surprising in the five years that I've been, been doing this and doing a lot of HubSpot implementation, where I am helping people migrate from a CRM, one CRM into, into HubSpot. And yeah, it can be messy. There's a lot of maybe properties in other CRMs that don't exist in HubSpot, and the functionality doesn't quite work the same.
And so you want to pull that over as his- historical data, but then it doesn't really get used very much, and, and then that clogs things up. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is, is duplicate contacts get created a lot, even in HubSpot, even when they try to put in guardrails around like, you know, you have to have an email address to try to prevent that.
It still doesn't, doesn't work all the time. And, I think, you know, just deals, you know, I think what I've seen is there's... A lot of times there's no real clear definition of why a deal needs to be in a certain stage of a pipeline. And so now when a sales manager or someone else tries to go in and look at the pipeline for forecasting, they can't trust it, right?
Because one rep might say, you know, "This is what defines a stage two opportunity," and another one has a different definition and, and so it just gets really difficult. There can be stale deals just sitting there. Processes, sales process is inconsistent. Some... Everybody kind of seems to do their own thing and have their own, you know, way of, of, of documenting and, and doing their process.
And so, so yeah, and all of those things...
Alisha Esmail: Things, uh...
Travis: Are, are just variables that AI needs to grab onto in order to do its job effectively. And especially, you know, when you're trying to look at churn and things like that and look at history, it can just really amplify the mess if you try to layer AI on before getting a good base and clean base, right?
Alisha Esmail: Oh. Yeah, absolutely. The cleanup comes first.
Travis: Yeah. Yep, exactly.
Alisha Esmail: To come first. Yeah.
Travis: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Awesome. And then, you know, what, do you have any in, in, in what you've seen and, and when you've gotten in to work with these companies, is there anything that you've seen where if you were to talk to someone a- and, and give them advice on, you know, this is the number one thing I think you need to do before we start working with you, if they're on the wait list, let's say, and they can maybe do some things to, to prep, what, what are s- some of the biggest things they could do that might be within their, their team, their resources, some quick wins?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, I would say the biggest thing is really just like wanting to grow and get better. Because the Latch system itself, like the integration's pretty seamless. It... there's not a lot of work on the client side. We do a lot of work right now with our early adopter program and the white glove onboarding we're doing, so we've added in a lot of consulting. So you're getting a lot of like really good extra help where some of the gaps might be in the business. So the biggest thing really is just like wanting to jump in with two feet. Think the most interesting thing I've realized, because I've talked to hundreds of business owners in the last number of months here, is a lot of people wanna say they wanna grow, but they don't. And I think what I'm s- like the pattern I'm seeing is by not paying attention to retention and client experience, it's a way to self-sabotage because it feels like you're busy, it feels like you're growing your business, right? You're adding top of funnel sales, you're getting new people in the door, but people are just quietly leaving. And it keeps founders and business owners on that treadmill, but they're not really moving the business forward. They're actually just growing flat.
Travis: Yeah. And would you say that that might be derived from, from fear? And, and when... As you grow, you start to... It gets real uncomfortable, right? You start to get outside of your comfort zone. You start to go into uncharted territory that you're not used to, in, in other businesses you might have worked at before or have, have built.
And I have seen that a lot with startups where the founder has a great idea, and they're able to just make it happen, and they're great at building things, but once it gets to a certain point, those skills aren't transferable to the growth piece, right? And, and the managing everything, and especially the larger it gets, the more complex it gets.
And, and I think a lot of them fail to see that, "Hey, I, I might need to outsource this now. It's outgrown my skills and capabilities." But they hang on because they feel like they're the founder. It's their baby, right? And so, I wonder if, if that has something to do with them wanting to self-sabotage and kind of stay in that, that comfort zone of where they're at.
Alisha Esmail: Possibly. I haven't seen so much of, like, them not wanting to let go. I think it's more of just, like, the if I don't, if I ignore it, then I don't have to deal with it.
Travis: Yeah, exactly. It's, it's the hard part, right?
Alisha Esmail: Y- yeah, like the way that I actually like to describe experience and retention is it's like the leak in your basement.
It's not a kitchen fire, it's not a dumpster fire, but your basement is filling with water. And oftentimes founders and business owners don't realize until it's too late, and...
Travis: Mmhmm.
Alisha Esmail: Caused so much damage.
Travis: Mm-hmm. E-exactly. E-exactly. A-and so when you start working with a, a company a- and start identifying, you know, some of the, the, the churn risks, are there ever times where they're surprised? They thought everything was going fine and some things were, were flagged and, and they were surprised by that?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, absolutely. I recently ran a report to help figure out one of our clients where their churn rate was, and it was at 40%. So they thought they were doing good. They knew they had a churn problem. They thought it was maybe higher than that, like maybe around like eight, like 20%, like they had like 80% retention. So I think that was like a bit of a shock for them. But we see it pretty often, like a lot of people, and I think I was that founder once, is like you think you're doing better than you are, and then you really look into the data and you look under the hood and it's like, "Oh, we're doing okay, but we could be doing significantly better if we just move the needle slightly."
And like what I mean by that is, and this is in the data, so it's pretty cool, but a lot of times you can move the needle by couple percent retention-wise, and it can change your profitability by 95%. Because if you're already covering your costs by the revenue coming in, right? If all your hard costs, not your variable costs, but all your hard costs are already covered and you're adding more revenue, a lot of times the profit is going up, not just your revenue. So it's, it really can make a big difference for these companies.
Travis: Yeah. A-a-and not to mention the time saved, the resources saved, and, you know, the difference between keeping a, a customer versus a net... getting a net new customer. A lot more expensive for the net new, right?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah. Yeah. And that like seven times actually. I think it's seven times more expensive to get a new client than to keep your current client.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's insane. But I feel like so many companies just get the sale and then they move on, right? They're just constantly in that, "We need new, we need new," right? And, and there's so much that you can, can gain from just focusing on what you've already spent the time and resources on.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I used to be that person, right? I used to make those mistakes, which is, you know, why I learned the hard way that retention's so important.
Travis: Yeah, exactly. E- exactly. And w- was that something that you kinda learned from, from the, the coffee business, of, of churn and...
Alisha Esmail: A specific story actually. I, you know, things were going pretty well. We already had created a number of streamlined supply chains. We were starting to make a pretty good impact and, you know, we were growing. We'd won a bunch of awards at this point already and, you know, I got that dreaded email. And was at the dinner table with my family and I checked my phone and the email, you know, was that we've decided to go in a different direction. And they were our biggest client at the time. They were our biggest client by 50%...
Travis: Well...
Alisha Esmail: Loss to our MRR. So I'm, you know, I was freaking out.
I had to excuse myself from the table and it was a really big wake-up call for me of realizing, like, I need to figure out how to become a retention expert if I'm gonna build a successful coffee company.
Travis: Mm-hmm. E-exactly.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah.
Travis: Were you able to turn that around or did they, they end up leaving?
Alisha Esmail: We did, yeah. They're, that company's still a client to this day.
Travis: Oh, nice.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah. So worked some magic, worked some magic, got them back, and it's continued to be a long-standing relationship. But I'm really glad. It was really hard for a bit there, and we actually lost them for a bit and then got them back, but it was a really, really great learning lesson, and I don't know if I'd be doing what I am today if I hadn't had that experience.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna ask, like, how much influence did that, that situation have on, on building what you've, you've built?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, significant. Significant.
Travis: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so when they, they came back, were you still, or your team still trying to win them back? Or did they just kind of come back on their own when things weren't, weren't working out? How did that... How did you get them back?
Alisha Esmail: Yeah. I think that goes back to the game of, like, sales and...
Travis: Mm.
Alisha Esmail: And just, like, being a good human. So we continued to serve them and show up and we... it was basically like trying to resell them again. So again, like, when you talk about it's easier to keep a client than to add a new one, it's way easier 'cause it takes a lot more time, energy, just, like, work...
Travis: Yeah. Exactly.
Alisha Esmail: Needed if we had done it on the front end.
Travis: Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Have you seen any statistics on, like the, the, the percentage of, of customers that churn and come back or how many, on average? And it probably varies by industry, but I'd be curious to see if, if there are any psychological things with that where people maybe left thinking they were getting a better deal or a better product somewhere and that it didn't turn out that way, but now they're afraid to admit they were wrong and come back and I wonder if that happens very often.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, that's a great question. I'll have to look into that one. I'm not too sure, but I would probably flip it and say it's not the client's responsibility...
Travis: Mm-hmm.
Alisha Esmail: It's the business'.
Travis: Mmhmm.
Alisha Esmail: The client might feel awkward, but it's, is that their problem? No.
Travis: Mmhmm.
Alisha Esmail: Business wants to grow and wants their revenue wants to serve them, then the business needs to figure out how to retain them.
Travis: Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Alisha Esmail: Right? Before it even gets to that point. It's like, it's trying to save the relationship in the breakup conversation. Like, that's... If, if you're leaving it that long, y- you didn't care enough about the relationship in the first place. You didn't prioritize the relationship, right?
Travis: Mm-hmm.
Alisha Esmail: But in business, we excuse it. If it was like, you know, if this was like a romantic relationship, there would be no excuses. It'd be like, "You didn't show up. Like, you left me on read...
Travis: Yeah.
Alisha Esmail: At the restaurant," right?
Travis: Yeah.
Alisha Esmail: We put up with it all the time, and then we wonder... And we do it all the time, and then we wonder why our clients leave.
Travis: Yeah, exactly.
Alisha Esmail: Come on.
Travis: Exactly.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah.
Travis: When, when you work with clients, do you ever, you know, kind of in the be- beginning phases, do any audits of their churned customers and, and try to find out, like, what were some of the leading, leading reasons? Is that part of working with, with a client?
Alisha Esmail: Absolutely. Yep, because there's typically signals well in advance, right? Like...
Travis: Mm-hmm.
Alisha Esmail: Doesn't decide, I'm gonna stick with the same metaphor I'm using, this breakup conversation. Someone doesn't decide they're just gonna break up with someone...
Travis: Mm-hmm.
Alisha Esmail: Right? There, there's a lead up.
There's a number of things that have happened where the person decides, "I don't know if this is the right fit for me and what I need. My needs aren't being met." But it's not like, "Hey, I just woke up today. Everything was good yesterday, and today I wanna break up." It's the same thing with businesses. So what Latch does is when we're onboarding, we go deep to understand w- first of all, like what's happened in the past? Where are some of these like holes in the business that we need to bridge? And what can we change now so that we can eliminate that churn in the future? There's a lot of other things we can do as we get going, but of course we wanna identify where those big gaps are first.
Travis: Exactly. Exactly. And, a-as I've worked with companies and, and kind of dug in to their processes and, and how they sell, it, it, it's fascinated me how a lot of companies will, will do some semblance of a closed lost reason or so they can do some closed lost analysis, but not many really document closed won reasons.
And so I think a lot of times they don't even really know why that person decided to choose them over... I think they're just so happy to get the business they don't really ask, "Oh, so, you know, why did you end up choosing us," right? And I think there's a lot of information almost more there than in a closed lost reason, right?
Because...
Alisha Esmail: Yep.
Travis: Was something that, that made them choose you over another company. What was that? And where is the gap? And I wonder how much this impacts churn of what were their expectations when they said yes to this company versus what was actually delivered and, and where are those gaps and, and how could that have been mitigated had they known, hey, this is their expectations.
This is why they said yes, you know, and, and we asked them why...
Alisha Esmail: Yeah.
Travis: Is what they told us. And, and we just didn't live up to it or we can't live up to that. Maybe it's unrealistic. So I'd be curious to, to know like what, what that gap is and if, if it's documented, if, if there is gaps there when, when people churn.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, I think like that's a really smart pro move and people should definitely be documenting that and asking the question of what, did you choose us? And understanding the client's expectations at the forefront.
Travis: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I mean, it even i- impacts your marketing too, right? Your positioning. Because I think a lot of companies just guess at, at why certain markets pick them or why they, you know, fit certain markets well, and that's their ICP that they, they kind of build. They almost kind of pick and choose, right?
And it seems like they don't use a lot of data to define that. And it just reminds... I always think about April Dunford's book, Obviously Awesome, ab- about positioning, and the story she tells about how her company thought they were, you know, positioned to compete in a certain, certain market, in a certain niche, right?
And then when they started talking to people and, and they started to see a trend, "Oh, we're getting all these financial companies. I wonder why." And they started to talk to people. They uncovered something that they didn't even think was a strength for them or something they could sell on. And so they ended up, I think the story is they ended up pivoting to focus on that, and then they just started, started killing it.
And so, so yeah, I think it's a missed opportunity for a lot of companies.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, totally.
Travis: I, I think you had mentioned when we, when we talked last about building a, a go-to-market dashboard to kill context switching. Is that something that you...
Alisha Esmail: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Our dashboards, when you log in, that's where you see your client health score, where your clients are at in the four categories, and then we have the exact follow-up message to send to each specific person. So it takes 95% of someone's work and they just have to review and send.
Travis: Hmm. Nice. Yeah, so that's the context switching that they don't have to, to really think too much about, about it, so...
Alisha Esmail: Switching between eight different tools. They can just look into their Latch dashboard and move on with their day and know that their clients are taken care of.
Travis: Nice. Nice. Okay. Cool. Yeah. I, I think those are all of the questions that I, I have, and, and really enjoyed our, our last conversation and this conversation and, and yeah, glad, glad we were able to do this. So really appreciate you, you taking the time to talk today.
Alisha Esmail: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Travis. And if anyone listening, you know, if they're interested in Latch or churn or this is like piqued some curiosity, just send me, send me a message on Instagram @alishaesmail or on LinkedIn DM me churn, and I'm happy to, to give you a free gift today, which is our churn scorecard.
And you can get an idea on how you're doing if you're not sure what your churn rate currently is.
Travis: Nice. Nice. That's awesome. Cool. Yeah, thanks a lot, and, uh, yeah, looking forward to, to sharing this with everybody.
Alisha Esmail: Hey, sounds good, Travis. Thanks for having me.
Travis: Yeah, thanks.
[Podcast outro]
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