Waste Management, Inc.
wm.com ↗In their words
“We've talked about churn being in and around that 10% range, and we're still bouncing around in that range”
“The churn in the national and hospital channels is actually right at 3%, consistent with what it's been”
“Churn was 9.2% in the quarter, which is similar to last year and validates the effectiveness of our customer lifetime value model.”
NPS disclosures (8)
WM measures customer satisfaction through the use of Net Promoter Scoring (NPS)
That's really supported by a best-in-class Net Promoter Score for that part of the business. And then three, I just think of it in terms of the strong execution, data-driven approach that WM has established and that we show quarter in and quarter out…
Net service increases remained positive, and our net promoter score improved by almost 12% year-over-year. Looking at revenue growth, as Jim said, we've seen a strong start to the year in pricing.
…capabilities where we've reduced our call center department costs in the first quarter by more than 20% compared to last year, while at the same time maintaining or improving our Net Promoter Scores in the commercial and industrial lines of business.
So, we're seeing our NPS score start to move the right way i
But the other thing we look at is obviously what's going on in Net Promoter Score, customer receptivity, the pricing. We're looking at churn.
Third quarter churn improved 100 basis points year-over-year to 8.8% and we saw another boost in our net promoter scores for all business lines we measure.
Overall, second quarter net promoter scores increased 82% and our commercial line of business score tripled. We are now turning our focus to the longer term to ensure that we come out of this pandemic a stronger more differentiated company.
Retention disclosures (31)
Churn: 10% (Q4 2025) — “we've talked about churn being in and around that 10% range, and we're still bouncing around in that range”
Churn (healthcare national and hospital channels): 3% (Q1 2025) — “the churn in the national and hospital channels is actually right at 3%, consistent with what it's been”
Churn: 9% (Q4 2024) — “churn remaining at about 9%”
Churn: 9.2% (Q3 2024) — “Churn was 9.2% in the quarter, which is similar to last year and validates the effectiveness of our customer lifetime value model.”
Churn: 8.5% (Q1 2024) — “Churn was near the lowest rate that we've ever seen at 8.5%.”
Churn: 9% (FY 2023) — “Our full-year churn rates remain at the lower-end of historical range at about 9%”
Churn: 9% (Q3 2023) — “Our Q3 churn of 9% remains at the low end of our historical range”
Churn: 8.3% (Q2 2023) — “That focus led to second quarter churn improving to 8.3%.”
Churn: 8.7% (Q3 2022) — “we maintained third quarter churn of 8.7% when adjusted for steps we took to intentionally shed three large unprofitable contracts”
Churn: 9% (Q2 2022) — “second quarter churn, adjusted for the intentional loss of an unprofitable national account contract, was 9%”
Churn: 8.4% (FY2021) — “2021 churn of 8.4% is an all-time low”
Churn: 8.7% (Q3 2021) — “churn was 8.7%. Year-to-date net new business for small and medium business customers is up more than 10%”
Churn: 8.8% (Q2 2021) — “Churn was 8.8% in the quarter and service increases outpaced service decreases by more than twofold”
Churn: 8.2% (Q1 2021) — “churn improved meaningfully to 8.2% and service increases expanded”
Churn: 8.8% (Q3 2020) — “Third quarter churn improved 100 basis points year-over-year to 8.8%”
Churn: 6.9% (Q2 2020) — “Our customer churn for the second quarter was our lowest on record at 6.9%”
Churn: 9.8% (Q3 2019) — “Churn it was 9.8% in the quarter, that's a little higher than we've been both year-over-year and sequentially.”
Churn: 8.8% (Q2 2019) — “Churn was 8.8% in the second quarter. Year-to-date churn is 8.5%, a 60-basis-point improvement over last year.”
Churn: 8.1% (Q1 2019) — “For the quarter Churn was 8.1%, a 150 basis point improvement from the prior year and the lowest churn we've seen in the last three years.”
Churn: 8.6% (Q4 2018) — “our focus on customer progress has reduced our churn to 8.6%, which is over a 100 basis-point improvement from the prior year.”
Churn: 8.7% (Q2 2018) — “Our churn rate was 8.7% in the second quarter, a 90-basis point year-over-year improvement.”
Churn: 8.9% (Q1 2018) — “Our churn rate was 9.6% in the first quarter or 8.9% excluding the expected churn from the implementation of the City of Los Angeles franchise contract.”
Churn: 9.7% (Q4 2017) — “Excluding the expected churn from these customers, our churn rate was 9.7% in the fourth quarter, a 30 basis point sequential improvement.”
Churn: 9.3% (YTD 2017) — “year-to-date churn rate was 9.3% and rollbacks improved 170 basis points year-over-year”
Churn: 9% (YTD 2017) — “Our year-to-date churn rate improved 10 basis points to 9%”
Churn: 8.3% (Q1 2017) — “we continue to see improvements in our churn which finished the quarter at 8.3%; that's the lowest number we've seen since 2002”
Churn: 9.1% (FY 2016) — “our full-year churn improved 100 basis points to 9.1%. This is the lowest churn rate since 2002 when we were at 8.6%”
Churn: 8.7% (Q3 2016) — “our churn rate dropped to 8.7%, that's 170 basis points better than last year and 40 basis points better than the second quarter of 2016”
Churn: 9.1% (Q2 2016) — “in the second quarter, our churn was 9.1%, a 120 basis points better than the last year and 10 basis points better than the first quarter of 2016”
Churn: 9.2% (Q1 2016) — “Our churn in the quarter was 9.2%, a 170 basis point improvement from the first quarter of 2015”
Churn: 10% (2003) — “we continued to hold our customer churn rate below 10%, which we see as a benchmark for success”
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About these figures
Every figure here was publicly disclosed by the named company: press releases, annual reports, SEC filings, earnings calls and news coverage. Companies tend to publish their NPS when it is good, so these numbers run higher than a true industry average: read them as what leading companies in this vertical say publicly, not as an industry benchmark.
NPS runs from −100 to +100. Retention figures are reported as the company defines them (net revenue retention, gross revenue retention, customer retention rate, churn). Every entry links to its source in the full database.