Customer Churn Analysis Using SQL & Tableau

1. Introduction

Customer churn-when existing customers leave a service-directly impacts revenue, growth, and business stability. For subscription-based industries like telecom, reducing churn by even a few percentage points can result in millions saved.

This project analyzes a real telecom customer dataset to:

• measure churn
• identify drivers of churn
• uncover customer segments at risk
• propose data-driven retention strategies

2. Business Problem

The telecom company is experiencing a high number of customer cancellations. Leadership wants to know:

• Who is churning?
• Why are they churning?
• Which customer segments are at highest risk?
• What actions can reduce churn?

3. Data Preparation (SQL)

3.1 Table Creation

The dataset was imported into a local SQLite database with the following schema:

A new feature was engineered:

TenureGroup

Customers were bucketed based on how long they had been with the company:

• 0–6 months
• 6–12 months
• 13–24 months
• 25–48 months
• 48+ months

This helps identify when churn is most likely to occur.

4. SQL Analysis

SELECT 
  COUNT(*) AS total_customers,
  SUM(CASE WHEN Churn = 'Yes' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS churned,
  100.0 * SUM(CASE WHEN Churn = 'Yes' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) / COUNT(*) AS churn_rate
FROM telco_churn;

SELECT Contract,
       COUNT(*) AS customers,
       AVG(Churn = 'Yes') * 100 AS churn_rate
FROM telco_churn
GROUP BY Contract;

SELECT TenureGroup,
       AVG(Churn = 'Yes') * 100 AS churn_rate
FROM telco_churn
GROUP BY TenureGroup;

5. Tableau Dashboard & Visualizations

A full interactive dashboard was built in Tableau consisting of:

• 5.1 KPIs
  • Total Customers
  • Churned Customers
  • Churn Rate %
• 5.2 Churn by Contract Type (Bar Chart)

  Month-to-month customers churn far more than others.

• 5.3 Churn by Tenure Group (Bar Chart)

  Most churn happens early in the customer lifecycle.

• 5.4 Churn by Internet Service (Bar Chart)

  Fiber customers show unusually high churn.

• 5.5 Monthly Charges — Churned vs Retained (Box Plot)

  Churned customers have higher price sensitivity.

• 5.6 Churn by Payment Method (Optional)

  Electronic check customers churn significantly more.

• 5.7 Interactive Filters

  Users can filter the dashboard by: Contract · Internet Service · Tenure Group

6. Key Insights

7. Recommendations