Hey, everyone. How's it going? I'm Mike.
Today, I'm here to talk to you about renewals.
Specifically, we'll discuss how to create a renewal process
for your customers.
That is data driven, well-timed, and highly personalized.
I'll even share examples of how we do it here
at Salesforce using our own technology.
Sound good? Let's go.
Welcome to Salesforce.
On Salesforce, an inside look at our sales service marketing
an IT
businesses with helpful How to tips you can use for your Business.
For Customer Success, leaders will share tips
on how to efficiently onboard your customers, how to successfully
implement new Salesforce technology, and so much more.
As always, you can learn more on Trailhead.
Salesforce Online Learning Platform.
For more information on this topic and many others
you might find useful for your business.
If you're a SAS business or subscription based company,
the Renos process is make or break for your company's success.
That's why you need a seamless,
customer centric renos process and rock solid forecasting tools.
So what are renewals and how do they generate
and sustain revenue
when a customer's contract for a subscription based product
or service expires and they decide to continue using that service
by signing a new contract, that's a renewal.
This subscription model sets a foundation
for recurring revenue and ideally sustained growth,
creating a renewals experience for your customers That is simple
and intuitive.
Doesn't happen overnight,
but with the right approach and technology,
it is possible to create an efficient
and cost effective renewals journey while offering your customers
the perfect mix of automated service and hands on attention.
So let me share three Pro tips for improving your Windows process.
Tip number one Monitor Customer Health Understanding
your Customers Business
and how they engage with your products and services
is key to understanding their willingness to renew.
That's why we recommend
creating a system that monitors customer health at Salesforce.
We actively monitor customer usage of different features
and functions.
We gauge customer health and a rating system that allows us
to identify and engage customers who need assistance right now.
We also have an early warning system
that flags are most at risk customers.
We can measure every customer interaction
because it's built on a fully integrated system,
giving us a 360 degree view of the customer across every touchpoint.
One indicator we look at is maturity.
How many products is our customer using?
How long has a customer had a contract with us?
We also look at customer support and program engagement.
What does a customer case volume look like?
How complex are the issues and what is their CSAT score?
After contacting us for support,
are they accessing our learning materials like Trailhead
or attending any of our events like product webinars
or expert coaching sessions?
All of these combined factors determine the health in the account
and their likelihood of their renewal.
We build these systems using reports and dashboards
and the account contact and opportunity objects.
These are all examples of existing Salesforce technology.
You can start leveraging today in your renewals forecasting.
OC With solid forecasting in place.
That brings us to another very relevant tip.
Tip number two, timing is everything with renewals.
Timing is your best friend
and having a system in place to measure customer health
means we can bring the history of each customer salesforce usage
into real time conversations about the renewal.
The approach of a renewal date is a great time to review
customer health, evaluate which products are up for renewal,
and identify opportunities for add ons or swaps.
But this isn't just about upselling.
We want to make sure each customer is enjoying efficient growth.
That means we take a data driven approach that tells us
whether a customer
is taking advantage of their investment in Salesforce
or if they're not using the products as much
because that's a key indicator of attrition.
At Salesforce, we typically start
reviewing accounts 12 to 9 months away from renewal.
Review involves ongoing check ins to the last few weeks before
the renewal date and conversations with an account manager.
And don't forget,
if you're using Salesforce for your own renewals processes,
you can also track and automate the process
through a standard Salesforce feature. The opportunity
all we know
changes automatically update the opportunity stage in Salesforce.
These in turn can be surfaced to leadership via auto updated
dashboards, easily identifying accounts
that need extra support right when they need it.
This allows our renewals team to be more productive
and focus their attention on the accounts
that are most at risk at any given time.
We love meeting our customers where they're at.
Some customers like to have a lot of interaction with us.
Some customers thrive in set it and forget it mode.
And that brings us to our final tip.
Tip number three include a self-service option.
At Salesforce,
we've developed a self-service program
that allows customers to renew their existing contract
without having to go through
our full renewal process with a renewed manager.
How did we do this?
As you heard in tip number two, timing is everything and talk about
well timed. So we're automated emails.
At Salesforce, we send emails to the customer's contract
owner 96 and 45 days before the renewal deadline
to let them know that it's time to renew their contract.
We share all of the same great information
that our renewals team would person to person, but in email format.
This process, which used to be entirely manual,
reduces cost and frees up a ton of time for our renewals team
to focus on higher priority tasks
from either their email or a linked landing page.
Customers can easily and quickly self renew
the landing page Built on marketing.
Cloud provides
custom account information that the customers can review
and gives them
the opportunity to modify and renew their existing contract.
In addition to automated email sends,
we alert customers about their upcoming window
dates through the use of in-app prompts.
In the Salesforce instance, they use every day.
We ensure these in-app prompts only show up for the contract owner.
Remember with Salesforce Customer 360,
you always have a single share view of your customers.
That means account and success managers working in sales.
Cloud always have eyes on what's happening
with the renewal campaigns within Marketing Cloud,
allowing them to be more productive
by getting involved only when they're needed.
Following these updates, we've seen a 52% year over year
increase in self-service renewals
and we're seeing 70% of our renewals
pipeline exclusively leveraging the self-service option.
There you have it.
Forecasting, timing, self-service.
Putting these concepts into practice ensures
that ah, renewals revenue is on track
and that every customer is enjoying personalized proactive support.
All the while we're helping our customers
maximize their investment in Salesforce.
We bring our best business ideas to life on the Salesforce platform,
and so can you check out the other resources provided to learn
more about how we manage
renewals here at Salesforce using our own technology?
And be sure to check out
the Salesforce
360 blog, Trailhead and the other episodes in this series to learn
how we use Salesforce products
to deliver amazing customer experiences.
We'll see you next time.