I came across a great post on Andrew Chen’s blog today that lists 25 reasons why customers stop using your product. The list originally came from the gaming community and Andrew has converted it to the online social media markets, but the points he outlines can apply to many other industries. Here are his reasons behing customer churn:

• First experience
  • “I don’t get what this site is about”
  • “This site is not for people like me”
  • “The colors/design/icons look weird”
  • “I already use X for that”
  • “I don’t want to register”
• Soloing and single user value
  • “I don’t have time to get involved in a site like this”
  • “I’m lonely, not enough happens”
  • “I forgot my password”
  • “I don’t know how to talk or meet people”
  • “I’ll just check on this account every couple months in case something happens”
• Encountering some friends(?)
  • “People on this site are mean”
  • “People I don’t know keep messaging me, WTF?”
  • “I want my friends to use this, but none of them are sticking”
  • “I’m getting too much mail from this site”
  • “I only have 3 friends, this site is still boring”
• Hitting critical mass for social
  • “This site takes up too much of my time”
  • “Too many people are friending me that I only sorta know”
  • “People are stalking me based on my pics and events!”
  • “This Top Friends thing causes too much drama”
  • “I’m getting flooded by e-mails for everything that anybody does”
• Becoming a site elder
  • “The guys who run this site aren’t building feature X that we really need!”
  • “The guys who run this site build feature Y that’s going to destroy this site!”
  • “I’m doing a lot of work but I’m not getting anything for it”
  • “I’m bored because there’s nothing left to do”
  • “Newbies are fun to pick on :)” (wait, maybe that’s a benefit!)

Make sure you read the complete post, and the article that inspired it.