Structural retention strategy + AI execution.
For iGaming, streaming, sports and subscription apps. We partner with your ExCo to structurally improve retention across the whole organisation, then build the AI that executes it: drift detection with embeddings, one-to-one CRM marketing at scale, and retention agents.
Tom Burrell
Retention Consultant & Founder of Retention AI
Hi, I'm Tom, founder of Retention AI. We are a retention strategy consultancy and AI execution agency. I've spent 27 years helping 35+ global brands understand why customers leave and what to do about it. At Retention AI we focus on combining strategic diagnosis with AI execution: we identify the real drivers of churn, map the moments that drive behaviour, and prioritise the fixes that matter most, whether that's a lifecycle redesign, a retention-agent build, or a full Retention transformation programme.
Connect on LinkedIn35+
global brand clients
27 years
in retention
100+
retention frameworks published
The problem
Retention isn't lost at churn. It's lost in the value gap.
In high usage recurring revenue businesses like iGaming, streaming, and subscription apps, retention isn't lost at churn. It's lost in the value gap, the moment a customer quietly starts drifting from the value they expected. Find that moment. Understand why. Intervene before the gap becomes a cliff. Triggered by behaviour, not by a campaign calendar.
Why customers actually leave
Price is the excuse in the exit survey. These are the reasons.
01
They don't feel value fast enough
02
They feel guilty they're not using it
03
It's not exciting anymore
04
They don't feel valued
Every one can be addressed proactively: early value, freshness, recognition, reduced friction. That's a strategy problem first, and an execution problem second. We do both.
The approach
How we actually fix it
Retention strategy: the hierarchy of needs
Retention is driven by the hierarchy of needs. We work with ExCo teams to identify where retention is breaking and what to do to fix it.
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Layer 1
Product proposition
Is the product worth it, priced right, and built for the customer you're trying to keep? Nothing above this compensates for a value or pricing problem.
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Layer 2
Acquisition quality
Are you bringing in customers who were ever going to stay? You can't retain your way out of acquiring the wrong people.
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Layer 3
Moments of truth
The handful of interactions that actually decide whether a customer stays: onboarding, first value, the failed payment, the post-win high. This is where CRM lives, and it's the last layer, not the first.
Drift detection with AI (embeddings)
A churn model tells you a customer is "high risk" after the fact. It can't tell you why, how their behaviour changed, or what it means. A risk score is a symptom, not a cause.
Embeddings work differently. Each customer's behaviour, what they use, skip, and in what order, becomes a position in a behavioural space, measured against other customers, their own past self, and healthy behavioural clusters. That lets us detect the change in direction: the drift away from a high-value cluster toward disengagement, early, while there's still time to act. The goal isn't prediction. It's trajectory correction.
One-to-one CRM marketing at scale
One journey can't serve a thousand customers at a thousand different moments, but agents can.
On one side, the customer's live state: where they are right now and what would actually move them. On the other, a single message assembled for them, the next best action from an approved, governed menu (reactivate, deepen, reassure, reward, trigger), built from their real-time attributes, at the right moment, in the right channel. Not last week's segment. This customer, this action, this message, now.
Go from a batch and blast campaign to thousands of right calls a day. One-to-one CRM you can actually govern and audit.
Watch my One-to-One CRM Masterclass
The AI second brain
AI is only as good as the context you give it. Point a generic model at a blank page and you get generic AI slop.
We built an AI second brain: all of our founder's retention and CRM frameworks, behavioural science that actually changes behaviour, and detailed specifications on what's proven to work in CRM marketing, all encoded in a form AI can read. Its foundation is our CRM marketing course, taken by more than 2,000 leaders and practitioners. Combine that with your customer and brand context, and you produce content at scale that's grounded in proven principles, behavioural science and the client's brand and customer reality. Don't just take our word for it, take our clients' feedback, they call it "Outstanding", "brilliant", "really emotive".
Results
What leaders say
AI customer lifecycle transformation
"Tom provided a strong framework for identification of detailed, valuable behavioural use cases for all lifecycle stages. He made a significant impact and added high value to our programme at a key time."
Mark Kemp
Chief Commercial Officer, William Hill & 888 (Evoke)
Personalisation at scale, 3× activation and past $1M ARR
"Tom was instrumental in helping us scope and strategize a feature focused on personalization at scale, one-to-one emails sent as if written individually, not blasted as a campaign. The impact was immediate: we saw a 3× lift in activation and day-90 retention, and that feature became a core driver in helping Aspen grow past $1M in ARR. Tom has a rare ability to connect product strategy directly to retention and revenue outcomes, and that partnership made a lasting difference for our business."
Ted Middleton
CEO, Aspen
Strategy, product rebuild & AI lifecycle execution, 7× subscribers
"Tom's support has transformed my business from one that was regularly making a loss, to one that is self-funded in just 5 months. Together we re-priced the product, built new conversion journeys, developed a new creative strategy and campaign, implemented a comprehensive CRM marketing programme, resolved multiple tech issues and implemented new Martech. All this increased average subscriber tenure and resulted in a 7× increase in subscribers."
Aaron Surtees
CEO, Subconsciously
Prioritising retention opportunities
"Tom worked with The Gym Group to help identify and prioritise retention opportunities to build into our plans. He is clearly an expert in his field and if you are looking to improve your retention, he can help."
Nick Shelmerdine
Strategy Director, The Gym Group
B2B AI SaaS retention strategy
"Tom has worked with us to develop strong retention and churn-prevention strategies for our AI SaaS startup, which helped us enhance our product. Highly recommend working with Tom!"
Nikolai Skelbo
Chief Operating Officer, Subsets AI
Upskilling retention teams
"Tom helped upskill our retention department during a large period of transformation. His passion for retention and depth of industry knowledge had a big impact on the team and this immediately translated into business impact."
Matt Ramsden
Head of Customer Growth, Kindred
Start with a retention audit
A structured look at where value leaks across your business, and the few levers that would actually move your retention number. No pitch deck, no obligation.
Or email tom@retention.coach directly.