How to Create a Churn Dashboard

This document will explain how to create a customer churn dashboard such as the one at right using dashboard creation software from InetSoft. A working version of this dashboard can be found on the InetSoft Gallery. This dashboard has a large number of components, but these are primarily text KPIs, along with some filter components and simple charts. Below, we will examine how you can create all these different elements.

Contents
What is a Customer Churn Dashboard?
Create a Churn Dashboard
Add KPIs
Add Bar Charts
Add Categorical Filters
Add a Menu
Add a Pie Chart
Add a Scatter Plot
Add Range Filters
Add a Ranked Chart

 
 

What is a Customer Churn Dashboard?

A customer churn dashboard is a visual representation of key metrics and data related to customer churn within a business. Customer churn refers to the rate at which customers stop using a product or service and switch to a competitor or discontinue their usage altogether. The churn dashboard provides a snapshot of customer churn patterns, trends, and insights, allowing businesses to monitor and analyze their customer retention efforts.

The dashboard typically includes various visualizations and charts that summarize important churn-related information. Here are some common elements you might find in a customer churn dashboard:

• Churn Rate: This metric shows the percentage of customers who have churned within a specific period. It helps track the overall churn trend.
• Churn Cohorts: Cohort analysis categorizes customers based on their signup or acquisition dates. By analyzing churn rates within different cohorts, businesses can identify patterns and understand if certain customer segments are more prone to churn.
• Customer Segmentation: The dashboard may present churn data segmented by different customer attributes such as demographics, geography, or purchase history. It helps identify high-risk customer segments and tailor retention strategies accordingly.
• Churn Reasons: This section provides insights into why customers churn. It may include a breakdown of churn reasons, such as price, product dissatisfaction, poor customer service, or competition. Understanding the reasons behind churn helps businesses address specific pain points.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): CLV represents the predicted revenue a customer generates over their lifetime as a customer. Monitoring CLV alongside churn allows businesses to assess the financial impact of customer attrition.
• Retention Initiatives: The dashboard may include information about ongoing retention initiatives and their effectiveness. It helps evaluate the impact of various strategies and interventions aimed at reducing churn.
• Predictive Analytics: Advanced churn dashboards may leverage predictive analytics to forecast future churn rates based on historical data and customer behavior patterns. This enables proactive churn prevention and intervention.

By using a customer churn dashboard, businesses can gain valuable insights into their customer base, make data-driven decisions, and implement targeted strategies to improve customer retention and reduce churn rates.

Create a Churn Dashboard

For the example churn dashboard found on the InetSoft Gallery, we will consider the creation of some of the main elements:

• Text KPIs ('Total Cases', 'Churns, 'Priority')
• Charts: Bar, Radar, Pie, Scatter
• Filters: Selection Lists and Range Sliders
• Forms: ComboBox Menu

The following sections will illustrate the steps required to design this primary functionality.

Add KPIs

First consider the following KPIs.

To create these KPIs, first drag a Text component from the Toolbox panel into the dashboard using Visual Composer.

Right-click the Text component and select Properties from the context menu. In the Text Properties dialog box, select the Data tab. Choose data as the 'Table', customerID as 'Column', and Count as 'Aggregate'. Press OK.

Drag in another Text component, and enter the text "Total Cases". Select both Text components by dragging across them, and then select the Format tab in the bottom left panel. Set Center Middle as 'Alignment' for both.

Now select just the top Text component, and choose a large bold font from the Format panel.

For the "Total Cases" text, set a small gray font. Drag a Rectangle component from the Toolbox onto the dashboard. Use the Format panel to set a white 'Background' color. Then right-click the Rectangle and select Send to Back (or Send Backward as many times as required).

Drag the Rectangle behind the Text elements to provide a background. Then select all three components by dragging across them. Copy and paste them (you can Ctrl-drag the group to do this, or use the 'Copy' and 'Paste' menu commands) below the first group. Right-click the Text component in the second group, and select Conditions.

Add the following condition and press OK.

Change the Text label above the KPI from "Total Cases" to "Churns."

Add Bar Charts

We will now add the three bar charts below.

Drag a Chart component from the Toolbox into the dashboard. Use the resize handles on the Chart to size the Chart to occupy a small square region. Press the Edit button to open the Chart Editor. Drag the 'MonthlyCharges' field from the Measures folder of the 'data' data block to the X region. (All the fields for these Charts can be found in the 'data' data block.) Drag the 'Contract' field from the Dimensions folder to both the Y and Color regions.

Right-click on the legend and select Hide Legend. Right-click on the Y-axis and X-axis titles, and select Hide Title for each. Press the Edit Color button, and set the colors shown below.

Press Finish to close the Editor. Right-click on the Chart and select Properties.

Under the General tab of the 'Chart Properties' dialog box, turn off the Visible property next to 'Title'. Under the Line tab, set the 'X Grid' line to NONE. Press OK. Right-click on the Y-axis and select Axis Properties. Under the Line tab, disable Show Axis Line.

Right-click the X-axis and select Axis Properties. Under the Line tab, set the Scale options as shown below:

Add a Text element above the Chart that says "Total Rev". Chang the font size and color for the labels as desired. Use the Format panel to remove the border from the Chart component.

Make two copies of the Chart. Open the Chart Editor for the first copy. Press the Change Measure button and change the 'Aggregate' for the X-axis to Average.

Right-click the X-axis and select Axis Properties from the menu. Under the Line tab, set the following limits, and press OK. Exit the Chart Editor.

Change the label above the Chart to "Avg Rev".

For the second copy, open the Chart Editor, and set the X measure to 'tenure' and the 'Aggregate' to Average.

Use the 'Axis Properties' dialog box to set the axis Maximum and Major Increment to 60, and change the label above the chart to "Tenure".

Drag a white Rectangle from the Toolbox and place it behind the three charts (right-click, Send to Back), and add a group label "Customer Profile by Contract Type".

Create another group of Charts by selecting, copying, and pasting the entire block of three charts you just created. For the first and third charts, make the following changes using the Chart Editor.

• For the first Chart, place the 'InternetService' field in the X region, and the 'CustomerID' field in the Y region. NOTE: Before placing 'CustomerID', right-click the 'CustomerID' field and select Convert to Measure from the context menu. The 'Aggregate' should be set to Count by default. Hide the Y-axis, and use the Line tab of the 'Axis Properties' dialog box to hide the lines for the X-axis (turn off Show Axis Line). Use the Label tab to set horizontal orientation for the labels, and use the Alias tab to change the "Fiber optic" label to "Fiber". Change the label above the Chart to "Internet".
• For the third Chart, place the 'MultipleLines' field in the X region, and the 'CustomerID' field in the Y region. NOTE: Before placing 'CustomerID', right-click the 'CustomerID' field and select Convert to Measure from the context menu. The 'Aggregate' should be set to Count by default. Hide the Y-axis, and use the Line tab of the Axis Properties dialog box to hide the lines for the X-axis (turn off Show Axis Line). Use the Label tab to set horizontal orientation for the labels, and use the Alias tab to change the "Yes" label to ">1", the "No" label to "1", and the "No phone service" label to "No". Change the label above the Chart to "Phone Line".

For the middle Chart, make the following changes in the Chart Editor: Press the Select Chart Style button, and choose Radar. Remove the fields from the X and Y regions. Add the following fields to the Y region: 'Backup Addon', 'DeviceProtect Addon', 'Movie Addon', 'Security Addon', 'Streaming Addon'.

Right-click one of the axis labels and select Axis Properties. Use the Alias tab to set the following labels. The press OK, and exit the Chart Editor.

Set the label above the Chart to "Other Services".

Replace the "Customer Profile" label with the label "Service Purchased by Contract Type".

Add Categorical Filters

Below this set of KPIs and Charts, we will add a group of filters. Drag the 'PhoneService' field from the data source into the dashboard. This creates a new Selection List. Change the title to simply "Phone".

Repeat the above to add Selection Lists for the following fields: 'Contract', 'Partner', 'InternetService', 'Dependents', 'gender', 'PaymentMethod','MultipleLines', 'OnlineBackup', 'OnlineSecurity', 'StreamingTV', 'TechSupport', 'StreamingMovies', 'DeviceProtection'.

We also want to add 'SeniorCitizen', but if you drag this field into the dashboard, it will create a Range Slider rather than a Selection List. So, in this case, drag a blank Selection List from the Toolbox into the dashboard, and then drag the 'SeniorCitizen' field into the blank Selection List. You can format the Selection Lists as desired by using the settings on the Format tab. For this example, though, we will leave them as-is.

Add a Menu

You will now add a Form component that will allow you to control the data displayed on a Pie Chart that you will add in the next section. Drag a ComboBox from the Toolbox panel into the dashboard. Into this ComboBox, drag the following fields: 'Contract', 'Dependents', 'DeviceProtection', 'gender', 'InternetService', 'MultipleLines', 'OnlineBackup', 'OnlineSecurity', 'PaperlessBilling', 'Partner', 'PaymentMethod', 'PhoneService', 'StreamingMovies', 'StreamingTV', TechSupport'.

The menu should now display the following options:

Right-click the ComboBox and select Properties. Change the 'Name' of the component to "ViewBy", and press OK. (The 'Name' allows you to refer to the Form element as a variable or parameter, as you will do in the next section.) Add a Text label "View By" to the left of the ComboBox.

Add a Pie Chart

Drag a new Chart into the dashboard above the ComboBox, and open the Chart Editor. Press the Select Chart Style button and choose Pie. In the data source, right click the 'customerID' field, and select Convert To Measure. Then drag the 'customerID' field from the Measures folder to the X region of the Chart. Drag any field from the Dimensions folder to the Y region of the Chart, and then press the Value Type button and select Variable. Choose the ViewBy component as the variable. This will allow the ViewBy ComboBox to set the dimension on the Y-axis of the chart.

Drag the 'Churn' field to the Color region. Hide the legend and all the labeling except for the Y-axis labels. (To do this, right-click the various elements, and select the Hide option from the menu.) Hide the Chart Title by turning off the Visible property for the 'Title' in the Chart Properties dialog box. Right-click one of the Y-axis labels and select Axis Properties. Set a horizontal orientation for the labels, and press OK.

Press the Edit Color button, and set the first two colors as shown below:

The Pie Chart is complete, and can be controlled by the ComboBox below:

Add a Scatter Plot

Drag a new Chart from the Toolbox into the dashboard next to the Pie Chart. Open the Chart Editor. Press the Select Chart Style button and select Point. From the Measures folder, drag the 'MonthlyCharges' field to the X region. Press the Edit Measure button, and choose None as the 'Aggregate'.

Drag the 'tenure' field to the Y region, and drag 'Churn' to the Color region. Press the Edit Color button and choose the same colors as you did for the Pie Chart.

Press the Edit Shape button, and select the 'X' shape.

Right-click each axis title, and select Title Properties. Change the names to "Tenure" and "Monthly Charges". Set the "Tenure" title to display horizontally. Right-click the X-axis and select Axis Properties. Set the following limits under the Line tab.

Set the Y-axis limits to run from 0 to 75 as shown below, and hide the Chart title.

Add a Rectangle background for the Pie and Scatter Charts (as you did earlier), and add a label that says "Churn Distribution". Set the borders of both Charts to None (as you did earlier). Make any desired adjustments to fonts and colors using the Format panel.

Add Range Filters

Add Range Sliders below these charts. To do this, drag the 'tenure' and 'MonthyCharges' fields into the dashboard. This creates a Range Slider for each. Add Text elements above to provide labels, as shown below.

Drag the 'Churn' field into the dashboard to provide one more Selection List next to the Range Sliders. Click on one of the cells and drag the handle to place the Yes/No choices side-by-side.

Add a Ranked Chart

Finally, add a Bar Chart that displays "importances" determined by machine learning. Drag a new Chart component above the Pie and Scatter Charts, and open the Chart Editor. For this Chart, use the 'importances' data block as the data source. Right-click on the 'importance' field and select Convert To Measure. Then drag it from the Measures folder to the X region. Press the Edit Measure button and set the 'Aggregate' property to Sum.

Drag the 'feature' field to the Y region. Press the Edit Dimension button and set the sorting and ranking as shown below:

Finally, press the Edit Color button and choose a pink color for the bars. Click the X-axis, and use the Format panel to assign a Percent format.

Change the Chart title to "Top 5 Churn Factors Determined by Machine Learning," hide the X-axis labels and title, hide the Y-axis title, and hide the axis lines (using the Chart Properties dialog box).

The churn analytics dashboard is complete. Use the Format panel to adjust any fonts and styling to suit your needs.