going from passively to actively managing the customer lifecycle

Going from passively to actively managing the customer lifecycle

About Me

• J.R. Storment • Chief Customer Officer at Cloudability • Lives in Portlandia (via Hawaii and San Francisco) • Twin 5 year old boys • jr@cloudability.com

Signed some customers! …offered reactive support

Signed a whole bunch more! …started proactive outreach

Then had some churn… Time for something new.

The Climate

• A lot of customers growing organically on the platform (opportunity) • Customers needing to see increased value as spending scaled (challenge) • Friction caused by auto-renewals happening unexpectedly • Complex customer needs, complex data, complex product • Revenue team doubled in size

Goal: Increase renewals

Why do they matter so much?

Because we’re a subscription based business, fueled by recurring revenue.

The beauty (and curse) of SaaS

The cloud bill nearly always grows due to increased use.

Enter CRML: Customer Relationship Management Lifecycle

What We Did

Move from passively hoping renewals happen to actively managing them.

In the process, freed up TAMs to focus on deeper dives with engaged customers to make them stickier

Who does what?

•Sales Reps act as Quarterbacks:

•Own the customer relationship, contracts and push toward renewal •Schedule & ensure key meetings (like QBRs and check-ins) happen •Ensure there’s always a customer on the other end to engage

•Technical Account Managers act as Running Backs:

•Create content for and run the customer kick-offs and QBRs •Do customer trainings and deal with the technical details •Focus on increasing adoption of Cloudability in the organization

Sportsball Analogy —>

Quarterback

Running Back

Customer Milestones

The key milestones for each customer:

…rinse and repeat.

• 0 days — Discovery & Goal-Setting Kick-Off

• 90 Day — Onboarding Plan to get to Value

• 3 Month QBR — Confirm Value and Goal Progress

• 6 Month QBR — Goal Review + Roadmap

• 9 Month QBR — ROI and Value against Goals

• 12 Month — Updated Discovery and Kick-Off

The backbone of the system: NOTES!!!

During the meeting the Sales rep records detailed notes. They are posted to Salesforce and key ones (like QBRs) are shared with revenue leadership.

• Who was there

• Wins uncovered

• Objections or Problems (Impediments to engagement or usage)

• Follow-ups and Action Items

The Supporting Pieces

1. A Combined View of the Customer

• Combine CRM, usage data, billing, support, marketing, NPS and Surveys into a single view.

• Key to moving from reactive to proactive and data-driven customer management.

• Salesforce, Totango, etc.

2. Consistent Onboarding

• Structured 90 day kick-off and training to drive better adoption.

• Apply the same intensity to onboarding as you do to closing deals

• Two main areas of focus: 1) Reduce Time-to-Value (TTV) 2) Aim for all users get the experience—not just the new ones.

3. Health Scoring

• Accounts scored based on 30+ criteria

• Usage based information (logins etc) as well as subjective data (sentiment) from the account team.

• Result is a red/yellow/green state that provides a roadmap for next steps with the account

4. Always On TrainingAdded end user and admin training available at all points in the customer lifecycle.

For example: •Bi-weekly training sessions in key time zones •Custom training options and train the trainer option for large customers •New release training coordinated with Product team

5. Asynchronous Escalations• Weekly account reviews became status updates and burned time

• Moved to asynchronous escalation process based on health score

• When customer health changes an alert is triggered to account team and revenue leadership with change reasons for immediate remediation

• Weekly account highlight email sent by TAMs then summarized for leaders

Results• Took about two quarters to get framework in place

• First quarter implemented churn dropped

• Customers were surprised we weren't doing it before

• But… higher-touch can accelerate some ‘zombie accounts’ churn

Take-aways

• Focus kick-offs on customer goals so that QBRs can be about ROI

• TAMs love it because it gives their work structure:The focus on goals gives them a roadmap for interacting with customers.

• Salespeople loved it because it made renewals easier

Don’t forget: The demand for TAM

resources is bottomless

We’re hiring Technical Account Managers in Portland & San Francisco!

Looking for TAMs with: • Cloud experience • Analytics or Data Experience • Account Management-fu • Email jr@cloudability.com

Q&A