Renewal Conversation Changing Every Day

BenB

Reviewing previous renewals and current conversations has shown me how quickly convesations are changing surrounding renewals.  I've told my CSM that our save stratedgies and how we assess risk will be VERY fluid bc what is working today will change tomorrow. 

 Here is what I've seen and what im expecting in the coming months.  Please add too and fill in the gaps.

**This does not represent a majority of our business (this is not a sky is falling post). however we all know these will be the conversations that take up a majority of our time.   

March-April (some of May) - conversations were on pause. the goal of client was to delay until they understood impact to their business. 

May-June - Requests for discounts, payment terms, anway we can help them buy some time unil they quickly bounce back. Have plans to renew. 

July- September - companies are just tightening their budgest on every aspect of their business regardless of business impact.   We have an enterprise solution so if there is any feeling they arent fully utilizing the necessary features, they can switch to buying a couple smaller options.   

October : Next wave of  requests for cancellation (layoffs, unpaid invoices etc...)   from companies impacted by covid.   

Nov - Feb: Companies NOT impacted by covid but will have agressive internal policies in place, which ill call "budgets are frozen" 

What we're doing now: 

1. renewal convos (down to the paperwork) are delivered as early as humanly possible.  People are hyper focused on transparent conversatoins.  if you ask theyll tell you exactly whats going to happen come renewal (as they see it today). 

2. Implemented and ever changing Save Strategy: pre planned offers that quickly go into effect. no reason to beat around the issue. 

3. Prepare for Procurement - Any one responsible for renewal and will be emailing/calling in response to renewal needs to be prepared to manage a procurement department.   This time last year a POC and decision maker is all you needed to communicate with on 80% of renewal.  Now almost every renewal a Procurement Leader (not associate) is coming in last minute.  

This was a braindump and not perfect - so please feel free to add to conversation. 

gurd3v

The one thing I'd caution against is having a save strategy to simply save the account. When things first started gaining momentum in March, we listened to what our customers needed from our product to be more valuable and delivered that as a paid upgrade. Now customers looking for discounts are paying more for our product because they're extracting even more value than initially and they are okay with the additional cost.

While some customers may reach out seeking relief strictly due to the impact COVID has had on their business, others may not feel the product is a "need" in this environment, and simply offering a short/long term discount to keep them may not help your business long term. 

What we've done is qualified whether or not we can solve for the "value" concern through our product, been fully transparent with the customer about this, and if appropriate, offered a concession to help the customer weather the storm. But we've been clear about our save strategy being aligned with maintaining the customer long term. If we can do this with confidence, we need to help customers weather the storm. If we can't? We help where we can, but be clear about the value piece. 

Anita Toth

I agree with @Gurdev Anand that the long-term strategy of keeping the customer should be the focus right now (and always but we're speaking about the next 5 months). 

In the past few weeks, I've spoken with several CS Leaders and Founders on what they're doing now to prep for a next wave of the pandemic (assuming it's happening in the next few months).

I was surprised by some of the strategies being employed. 

Two companies have chosen to update knowledge bases as a way to reduce support tickets. For both companies, this was highly effective in the first wave.

One company is role-playing with CSMs to have those difficult conversations with customers. What this has led to is a deeper and more meaningful relationship with those customers. Even though not all accounts are saved, the relationship is ending on high note.

Here's the article if you want to see more details on how they deployed these strategies and the specific outcomes:
https://anitatoth.ca/are-you-ready-3-customer-retention-strategies-for-pandemics-next-wave/

 

BenB

thx for sharing! 

Will Pagden

I’ve just today started amending our renewal strategy. It’s certainly interesting times and I agree with you on the tightening on budgets regardless of cost impacts. 

But it has to work long term for me, we look at the long term strategy of our customers. We are often offering support through this time and using this as an opportunity to look forward and how our product can help these companies recover from the pandemic.

We have given some breaks and pauses but its not ideal, but ultimately its about retaining customers we know we can deliver value too out the other side.

gurd3v

The key thing here that I agree with is the notion that although it's not ideal, providing relief for our customers during this time is imperative. This is an opportunity to win loyalty - those opportunities are hard to come by. 

Mahesh Motiramani

Great discussion here. Thank you folks.

Sharing how our experience and actions have been in this time of crisis.

Of course, we have been in similar situations somewhat like @Ben Bunting has pointed out, but we've coached our teams very early on to be in "Listen mode", empathetic and improve situational awareness (of the customer, industry, externals, internals, etc.) much like the article which @Anita Toth  posted. 

In addition to those, we have worked incredibly hard on producing content, training and material that allows our customers to continue adopting and using the product to either realize the opportunities that COVID surfaced (more digital/online experiences and processes), or adopt defensive postures and even prepare for the reboot/reset. We even produced free solutions and features to help customers in accelerating their digital initiatives, and offered help where they were stuck or they had to quickly pivot or partake in the Govt. programmes. So, a key element of our save strategy has been to accelerate adoption and setup the customer for increased value realization from the product, which we believe will lead to increased loyalty.

Anita Toth

And those opportunities, if not handled properly (meaning a bad CX), can also cause a customer to rethink their choice of vendor when renewal comes up.

Anita Toth

That early coaching for 'listen mode' will be helpful as things change in the next few months.  I'm curious @Mahesh Motiramani what are you doing with the 'listen mode' training (refreshing it? parking it for the time being?)