Would love to hear from the community. Here's a story:
Today, I had a customer who experienced these challenges:
- original CSM was unengaging and unresponsive so they requested a CSM change. They got me.
- Things improved and they were comfortable doing a one year extension to see how things continue to progress.
- Major outage changed their tune
- They wanted to go month to month (so at least we are keeping them and I have an opportunity to repair value)
- We told them they can't because one of their products is outsourced and doesn't allow month to month so they were looking to extend long enough to replace us
- They decided they only wanted to talk to me and not the renewals department. They pressed on me to cut a deal for them.
- I managed to set expectations and tell them about the benefits of them coming to the table
- They agreed to come to the table and provided legal and executive sponsor to the meeting scheduled tomorrow.
Rollercoaster. My leaders are impressed with how I got them to commit to the call.
I was well within reason to write this churn off as not my fault and would have been able to mourn without feeling responsible. Solid customer to work with so I would have mourned losing them, but instead I gave our company a chance to win them back.