Alex Atkins is the VP of Growth and Operations at Sturdy.ai, an AI-powered customer intelligence platform that turns customer conversations across emails, chats, tickets, and calls into actionable insights for B2B teams. Drawing on a background in psychology, communications, marketing, business analytics, and growth, Alex helps teams better understand churn signals, retention risks, and expansion opportunities so they can act faster and more intelligently.

Customer churn is one of the most significant challenges in business, yet so many teams fail to pinpoint the exact reasons behind it. With all the data available, why do teams still miss the warning signs until it's too late?

With experience spanning growth, operations, analytics, and customer intelligence, Alex Atkins brings a data-driven perspective to why teams often miss churn signals. He says the key to understanding churn lies in connecting the dots between seemingly disconnected signals. Alex points out that while teams often focus on isolated factors, churn is rarely caused by one issue. Instead, it's usually a combination of small, overlooked signals, like underutilization, executive changes, slow responses, or product confusion, that build over time. When teams miss those patterns, they end up reacting too late and lose retention opportunities that could have been saved with the right insights.

In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, Alex Gluz is joined by Alex Atkins, VP of Growth and Operations at Sturdy.ai, to discuss why customer churn is often misunderstood. Alex shares insights on why traditional health scores and NPS often miss the mark, how signal combinations can predict churn before it happens, and why dashboards are not enough without ownership and action. He also talks about how real-time customer intelligence can transform growth strategies, retention efforts, and expansion opportunities.