If you’ve ever gone to the doctor for an annual physical, you know the value of preventative maintenance. You may feel fine, but the professional asking the right questions and running some tests can uncover things you can do to help you feel better or mitigate potential problems. The same approach applies to customer retention.
Being proactive to keep clients happy is core to any CX leader’s role, but is paramount for those at SaaS companies. Some of your clients have outdated implementations due to organizational changes, evolving priorities, and internal resourcing. This poses a revenue risk to you if a client experiences sufficient inefficiencies that they consider looking for another service provider and ultimately churn.
Proactive optimization of these accounts will reduce risk, improve client satisfaction, and enhance customer loyalty. Going through this exercise is helpful to you as you’ll learn firsthand how end users use your products and services, what’s inhibiting them from more effective usage, and reasons behind why they want or need certain features. Plus, you may set the stage for an upsell at renewal time if clients are maximizing your product/service.
Prioritizing accounts
Depending on your team’s capacity and complexity of your product or service, you may not be able to tune up every account right away. So, how do you prioritize which accounts to tune up?
High revenue potential
The top goal of retention is to reduce churn, so it makes sense to focus on accounts from a financial perspective. Consider including clients that make up substantial gross revenue or profitability. Another angle is to consider those with potential for upsells upon their renewal.
Usage patterns
Identify accounts that have low engagement or are underutilizing key features as they may need support to realize the value of your product. It may be quick and efficient to get them up and running if all they need is a little guidance or connecting with existing training resources.
Recent support interactions
Target accounts with frequent support tickets or unresolved issues. They may have a knowledge gap on using your tool and be at risk of dissatisfaction or churn that can be averted with training.
Renewal timeline
Prioritize accounts that are approaching their contract renewals to ensure satisfaction and strengthen the case for retention.
Recognizable clients or industries
Address accounts with brand name recognition or tied to high-profile industries or use cases. That social proof is valuable for your business. If you’ve done case studies for past clients, check back in - you want the information to still be accurate and if they churn you’d lose the ability to use their testimonials.
Conducting the tune-up
Once you’ve got your list of accounts to start with, it’s time to dig in. Use these steps in the process:
1. Conduct a usage audit. Analyze the account’s usage of your product to identify inefficiencies, underutilized features, or gaps in adoption. Understand what features they may be maximizing and where they may run into limitations based on their plan. If your product integrates with other tools or systems, evaluate the configuration and strength of the integration. Bring in the account manager and technical or operations team members for full visibility.
2. Host a strategy review. Schedule a meeting to understand the client’s evolving goals, challenges, and priorities. For bigger or local clients, it may make sense to do an onsite visit for enhanced communication.
3. Do a “ride along”. Connect with an internal employee who is using your tool. See how they navigate the platform and what they have to do to resolve issues. This insight can help you find major gains in training opportunities or improvements your tool might need.
4. Align your solutions to their needs. Internally, review the usage data with the context and information you received from the client. Map out a plan to address their pain points and build a strategy and timeline for when you’ll execute any changes.
5. Provide customized training. Offer tailored sessions and share relevant resources to help client teams master underutilized features or new updates that could drive better outcomes.
6. Tackle the technical work. Optimize configurations, adjust product settings, workflows, or integrations to enhance efficiency and better fit the client’s current processes.
When should the account tune-up be?
We know to go to an annual physical once a year or to take our cars into the mechanic every 5,000-7,500 miles for an oil change. But what about with retention tune ups? Timing is crucial for account tune-ups, and several considerations can guide when to schedule them.
One option is to conduct tune-ups around the halfway mark of the contract. This allows enough time for clients to provide feedback and for you to implement changes before renewal discussions. However, for longer contracts, it may make sense to conduct it in the first half.
Another is to work backward from the date of the renewal. Perform tune-ups three to six months before the renewal date to address any issues and identify whether there is a chance for an upsell or if you need to pull out the recovery playbooks. For new clients, you may want to do a quick check in a few months post-implementation to address onboarding challenges and ensure adoption.
There are industry-specific factors to keep in mind as well. For industries with distinct busy seasons (like retail, hospitality), schedule tune-ups during slower periods to avoid disruption. In heavily regulated industries, align tune-ups with major compliance deadlines or any regulatory changes.
You could also conduct the tune-up based on a certain trigger. React proactively to signs of declining engagement. Take a closer look at accounts with frequent or recurring support tickets, indicating possible friction points. Or, sync tune-ups with the client’s business milestones, such as product launches, acquisitions, or scaling efforts.
The right time for the tune-up may not be the same for every client - keep that mind when you tackle strategic planning.
Measuring success
Finally, to get the most out of the tune-up process, evaluate your clients’ success with the tool from a before-and-after standpoint. This is where benchmarks are essential. Work with your operations team to understand typical use and metrics around your product or service. Those will vary depending on your industry, product or service.
However, some general metrics you could start with include:
- Increased engagement with key features or higher overall usage metrics
- Positive feedback in post-tune-up surveys or direct communications
- Reduced support tickets
- Early signs of renewal commitment or discussions about expanding usage or adding services.
Your internal metrics matter as well. Evaluate the number of audits completed, configuration changes made, use cases addressed, time spent, and any other benefits like ideas for new training materials or testimonials collected. Collect the data over time. This can help you build your own benchmarks for this program!
Conclusion
Proactive account tune-ups are a powerful tool for driving long-term success and in turn retaining clients and minimizing churn. By prioritizing key accounts, optimizing their experience, and measuring the impact of your efforts, you’ll strengthen client relationships and get new ideas for initiatives to further your training and client success efforts. Start building a consistent tune-up process today, and you’ll pave the way for happier clients and sustainable growth for your SaaS business.