Customer wants to cancel. What happens next?

gurd3v

I'm curious to know what your teams are doing when a customer expresses that they'd like to cancel. 

Reasons I ask:

• Who manages the conversation and why?
• Is there a process defined internally for this?
• How do you hold customers to term?
• Once churned, what happens to that customer next?

Marco Innocenti

Hi Gurdev - this is a little variable depending on channel that the customer purchased (online vs direct), but here is high level what we have in place.

• Who manages the conversation and why? - Dedicated team trained on specific talk tracks and engagement strategies 
• Is there a process defined internally for this? - Yes - for both identified at risk and expressed churn sentiment
• How do you hold customers to term? - churn would be at end of term, there is some wiggle room here usually
• Once churned, what happens to that customer next? - After time, winback campaigns to gauge interest

 

Will Pagden

Hey @Gurdev Anand, here’s what I’m doing currently with my team.

• Who manages the conversation and why? CSM, we are still a start up, so resource wise we are very lean.
• Is there a process defined internally for this? Yes, we have a playbook to support this process which differs depending on whether we had identified the account as a churn risk or if it was a surprise cancellation.
• How do you hold customers to term? Very clear in our contracts that if they cancel they have to honour the end of the contract. This may vary depending on the situation but usually most customers are aware of contracts and only cancel at the end. 
• Once churned, what happens to that customer next? Exit survey is sent to customer or Head of CS to call and do an exit interview. They then are returned to the funnel in a win back campaign. 

hope this helps! 

Brian Hartley

Hey @Gurdev Anand here is how we do it today

• Who manages the conversation and why? I typically intervene and ask to have a conversation to better understand reasons why just to ensure there isn't anyway to save them from leaving.  Takes the pressure off of the CSM
• Is there a process defined internally for this? Loose process aka in my head
• How do you hold customers to term? This is probably the toughest part as often times customers will terminate half-way through a 24 month subscription and feel they don't need to pay the second year.  Because our ARR is low, we don't invest time in legal to "force" a collection as we would spend more money paying lawyers than the contract is worth.  Typically we will send a few rounds of please pay emails but ultimately don't chase forever.  Super frustrating, would love to know how others handle.
• Once churned, what happens to that customer next? Typically an exit interview if we are lucky.  From there we are considering throwing them back into a win-back campaign. 

Emily McDonald

We're a small firm too and we echo this model. We don't however, do an exit survey but that's an excellent idea. We're currently re-working our business model and there's scope to completely change how we manage this part of the process. Thanks! 

Will Pagden

I am so onboard with your point about forcing collections @Brian Hartley. We are similar, we have a pretty good rate at collection after cancellation but when you're talking under 10k you can easily lose that in legal costs, plus all the internal costs.

Brian Hartley

@Will Pagden this is probably my least favorite part of the job.  Due to our size collections often fall back on me.  Between true churn or customers who fall off the face of the earth, I have to try to "force" collection even though I don't have much to fall back on (i.e. legal help).  We often have to write off bad debt at the end of the year..... 

Why can't customers pay according to their contract ?!?

Will Pagden

Yup, its not fun at all. Have very similar issues here @Brian Hartley.

Brian Hartley

Time to start a collection commiseration thread, ha!  Glad to know I am not alone @Will Pagden .  

BenB

I'll paste our workflow below.   We do not allow early outs.  we are being flexible and supportive but all our clients are in 12 or 24+ contracts so we'll only offboard at point of renewal.  

 

CSMs are primary responsible but we have myself or other leaders come in depending on size and negotiatoins.  

Here is our workflow: 

Client Termination and Offboarding:  

Day of Client Request	Client Sends Termination to  colleague   Colleague forwards original email to Contracts Team Colleague notifies CSM   Colleague response to client with simple reply acknowledging their email.     SAMPLE:    Hi NAME,     Thank your for the email and notification.  I’ve forwarded your request to our contracts team and your CSM.  They will be in touch with you shortly.    This is the end of colleague responsibility
Day of Receiving Request to Cancel	CSM receives Termination Notice from Client or internally from colleague  CSM forwards to Contracts team CSM notifies CS Leadership   CS Leadership Updates Renewal Opportunity “cancellation received”   CSM responds to client email.    DO NOT acknowledge right to terminate, simply mention you have their request to cancel.   Quickly offer times for a call with you and CS Leadership  SAMPLE:   Hello <Client Name>,   Thank you for your note. I'm sorry to hear that you want to cancel, may I ask why?   I know that we have been very active with you on a number of projects (Add Specifics)   I would love to set up an Executive review everything and to see how we can help further. I’ll include our Client Success Directors to make sure we’re all on the same page of what it would take to turn this partnership around.   I've copied in my Director so you can get their input as well.   Would you be available for a call tomorrow?     CS Leadership Follow ups with client communication to encourage save strategy.
Within 3 Days of Request	Leadership Confirms Cancellation   Contracts team acknowledges cancellation request with client.   Cancellation Accepted - Contracts sends notification email below.   Cancellation Denied – Contracts confirms with client they are still under contract with relevant details.  And notifies CSM to engage with client to offer assistance.  Contracts team notifies CSM (cc’s CS Leadership) cancellation is confirmed and to create support ticket on contract end date to remove: user access, ranking data and Integrations.  Contracts team will notify CSM on when to have Domains disabled (if different from contract end date.   ** Typically 30-60 days after contract end date.
Next Day after Contract Team Update	CSM Confirms Cancelation:   CSM emails client repeating relevant details regarding access and data availability and to please notify us if they have any requests specific to accessing their data.  Repeat that access will be removed on contract end date and that domains/data will be decommissioned.
Contract End Date	CSM creates support Ticket to disable  user access  Connected Integrations   Stop Ranking
30-60 Days After Contract End Date	CSM creates ticket to suspend Domain  Either on Contract End date, OR 30-60 Days after contract end date.  Specified by Contracts team.
Contract End Date	Leadership Thank you Email (final confirmation of needs)  CS Leadership sends final email day before contract end date, thanking them for their business and please contact if there is anything you need.
Contract End Date	Renewal Opportunity   CS Leadership updates opportunity “Renewal Lost”    Exit Survey:   CS Leadership Adds Primary Contact and Decision Maker to Marketing Hub List “ Client Cancellations”   Survey Received: CS Leadership Generates $10 gift card and thank you email.
Within 5 Days of Contract End Date	Finance Offboarding   Contracts Team Update company status, close open activities, etc…   CRM Offboarding  Updated automatically from CRM CS Leadership finalizes remaining details
	Data and Final Account Cleanup.

 

 

 

 

gurd3v

Awesome feedback. 

Couple follow up questions (hope you don't mind!) - 

1. Does your dedicated team identify at risk accounts proactively, or are they strictly reactive? 
2. Do you ever find customers looking to cancel mid term? If yes, what then? If no, why do you think that is?
3. Are win-back campaigns owned by Marketing, CS or another org? Is it strictly tech touch, or is there a human element as well?

 

gurd3v

Thanks for the thought out response @Will Pagden ! Curious to know:

1. At what stage would you consider a separate role outside of CSM handling the conversation?
2. Great thoughts around surprise vs identified churn risk playbook
3. I wish holding customers to term was easier...No matter how clear we are, we still receive push back.
4. Is your survey well responded to? How would you grade the success of your win-back campaign?

gurd3v

@Emily L McDonald Sounds like a lot of fun! We built a program from the ground up a couple years back - happy to share some insight offline if interested

gurd3v

There has to be an easier way to handle collections - might be worth it's own thread! I may spin one up and tag the both of you in it. Worst case, we have our own little pity party

@Brian Hartley hope the convo we had a couple weeks ago helped any! 

gurd3v

This is incredible!

Marco Innocenti

1. Both actually.  we have reporting designed around risk detection and then the reactive model for when the customer informs someone on one of the teams.
2. Yes, we try to stick to the term.  After first year, many customer move to month to month to help this after first renewal
3. Both actually.  marketing for the downmarket accounts that purchase online, CS campaigns and human elements for tech touch on up the segment line.

gurd3v

Thanks for the feedback - this is great info. 

Ronald Krisak

We try hard to acknowledge they want to cancel, but at the same time pushing for a quick call to try to salvage the account.  Based on how the company is using our product, we succinctly discuss some of the other use cases they could do with our product...usually some of the same things we have mentioned in the past.  We try to get to a point where we could do a mini-demo on existing gaps they might have to stay with our product.  If that doesn't work, we do a lot of the similar actions mentioned above in the thread to off-board the client.

Will Pagden

Wow.... that is all I can say right now @Ben Bunting other than I might have to steal some of those steps! Hope you don’t mind.

Vic Kasoff

Hi Will, would you be open to sharing your playbook? vkasoff@gamil.com

Anita Toth

@Emily McDonald 

You'll find you'll learn a lot from Exit Interviews.

I hope you can include them in your newly re-worked business model.

Here's a presentation on Exit Interviews, including a very valuable Q&A session. 

And here's the Exit Interview Mini-Guide from that presentation. (No email req'd. View and download immediately)

Let me know if you'd like some other tips on how to incorporate exit interviews into your customer feedback system.

Anita Toth

Love that you're doing exit interviews @Will Pagden. ??

Sounds like you have a good system going.

Who is running the exit interviews on your end?

Anita Toth

@Brian Hartley @Will Pagden  Have you guys ever considered using Gravy to collect those payments? I know they're far cheaper than a lawyer and have a good recovery rate. I know several companies that use them and like the service.                     

Brian Hartley

Hey @Anita Toth no, we don't.  Most of our invoicing is done directly through a customer's AP, only a small number pay or use a CC to process payment.