A few years ago, I ran a café in the middle of Melbourne CBD with my wife. I was primarily responsible for the marketing aspect of the business. If you’ve lived in Melbourne before, you will know that Melbourne has a vibrant coffee culture. There are literally cafes everywhere, especially in the CBD. 

### To stay ahead in this competitive environment, one of the most important things our business focused on was the retention of existing customers. 
It was all about keeping our customers happy. Our baristas tried to remember the faces of every regular customer and what they usually ordered; even before they made their order, our baristas would know what they wanted. When our regular customers didn’t have their money on them, that was OK. We would trust them to pay back next time. Because we know that the cost of attracting new customers is many times more than retaining an existing customer. In addition, my marketing training tells me that when a customer has a negative experience, they are much more likely to tell their friends than if they had a positive experience. And the potential damage caused by these X-customers to our café brand would be so much more than our small gestures we could take to keep them satisfied.

## So what does our café have to do with Steemit?
https://ipfs.pics/ipfs/QmUmH8nL54KBzXjkDYzsevdWB5WVXCYxjt1ihhCLktQLqu

#### I believe that just as staff at our café would go out of their way to retain our customers; those driving the future of Steemit need to put user retention as one of their top priorities. 
Yesterday morning when I logged into my account, I read a post from one of the authors I follow @jaredcwillis. His post was titled,
[Why I’m Taking My Content Elsewhere.](https://steemit.com/steemit/@jaredcwillis/why-i-m-taking-my-content-elsewhere) Although I don’t agree with all his points, his post made me think about Steemit’s problem with the retention of users. The friend who first introduced me to Steemit is no longer active here either. I feel really sad about this because I see huge potential for Steemit, and am worried about all these discontented x-users on Steemit who will be telling their friends about what’s wrong with Steemit and to tell them to stay away.

# So what’s the solution?
https://ipfs.pics/ipfs/QmU2S2JxYn6sU5xo3ECconHGoQYAro1SawjFf1r5NdpYHz

The number one issue I see repeated over and over again is to do with communication. A lack of explanation as to why certain posts were flagged by @ned or @dantheman is very harmful forcommunity sentament. Just look at all the comments relating to Ned’s systematic flagging of the [Daily payouts leaderboard posts](https://steemit.com/stats/@masteryoda/discontinuing-my-daily-statistics-posts) by @masteryoda. Now, to Ned’s credit, he offered an explanation in the comments to one of @masteryoda’s posts, but the damage has already been done, many people who were upset may have missed this comment.

There are many other recent examples of this lack of communication in action; the push to remove posts of featured authors without a proper dialogue with the community, or taking sides in the recent Sock Puppetry debates. All these things are not necessarily negative in themselves, as there are often legitimate reasons for why the actions were taken. But the most harmful aspect of this is the lack of communication as to why they were done, and lack of dialogue with the community and listening to the views of other Steemians. What our community needs is to have a sense that our concerns are heard, and to have a channel to voice our questions to those heading up Steemit.

## My proposal: Weekly Q and A with @ned or @dantheman
My idea is that each week I would collate questions from the Steemit community and have a few top questions that @ned or @dantheman would address. This weekly post would be an opportunity for @ned and @dantheman to dialogue with the community and address any concerns or issues that the community may have.

### What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any other suggestions on how we could better retain our users?

Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below.

Jimmy