Introducing Your Crystal Ball for Sales and Churn Notice
What if I told you that you can predict the future. Okay I can’t tell you that you will know who is going to fall in love or when a company’s stock will spike through the roof. That would be awesome though.
What you CAN predict is whether or not your client will be walking out the door. Will they stay or will they go? You can know.
You have two options. One is to be direct and ask. Thomas Cheriyan, Senior Director of Revenue Enablement at OwnBackup, suggests doing just that.
“Ask them “Are you renewing?” 90 days before the contract end date. Boom!”
Thomas Cheriyan, Senior Director of Revenue Enablement at OwnBackup
Now your client may be unsure or you may want to have an earlier heads up if your client is unhappy. There is an ongoing debate about sales entailing whether it is a science or an art. When it comes to predicting the likelihood of a client churning, it is a science.
Here are your red flags. The more flags and the more extreme the flag scenarios are, the more you will need to do to switch up your strategy and step up to keep your clients on board.
- Missed onboarding, adoption, or lifecycle milestones: The beginning of your relationship can set the bar for long haul. Pay attention to customers during those initial days and weeks.
- Product usage: Create a range of scarce, average, and excellent. You might want to create different metrics for client size or the nature of the client.
- Level and Nature of Interaction: You should keep track of the number of service requests and general engagement. Clients who are facing issues regularly or seem to be absent should be proactively addressed. If you are receiving negative survey responses or low NPS or CSAT readings, Houston you have a problem. (NPS measures customer loyalty while CSAT measures customer satisfaction.)
- Organizational shifts: A change in leadership, a merger or any dramatic shift in a company could mean that they reprioritize their budget and needs. Keep them in your circle when you learn of major changes in a company.
- General Business, Governmental or Societal Changes: As we all have come to learn post 2020, we know very little. The nature of work and business needs to be dynamic to adapt to life’s challenges from pandemics to war and economic recessions. Treat your clients like your friends. Check in on them and see how you can be helpful as a partner.
If you missed the signs, you could always regroup to save your client. Remember that while signs and data can be helpful, you can and should trust your instincts. Alan Sharp-Paul, Founder of GetHarold affirms,
“For many, the goal is to have a fully automated, data driven process for flagging at risk accounts. In reality, success comes when account managers’ knowledge is enhanced with, rather than replaced by, data.”
Alan Sharp-Paul, Founder of GetHarold
While this list is meant to help you proactively prevent a less than ideal situation, you got this. You do you!