4 Tips to Secure Customer Renewals
Every Business needs high repetition rates and long-term relationships with their existing customers. Thus, they keep a renewal option for their services which allows customers to connect repeatedly with them. However, it can be quite shocking for a customer to have their services auto-renewed without learning the exact date. It feels frustrating to miss the last cancellation day. It is not advised to surprise a customer with a renewal that they have neither considered themselves nor discussed with your company.
Acquiring new customers cost 5 times more than retaining existing customers. Hence, the company’s renewal strategy should be combined with customer experience. Customer support agents. Customer success associates and account managers are responsible for communicating and following up with the customers about their account status and preparing them for renewal. They need to start the renewal conversation with the customer from Level 1. Else, the customers might feel abandoned and deceived when renewal shows up in end as an unwanted surprise.
Here are 4 ways to Get started with a positive renewal conversation and enhance your customer experiences side by side.
-
Establish a Checkpoint Timeline
It’s important to check in with your customers from time to time. This gives support and trust to your customers and improves their overall experience.
Every customer’s expectation might differ but the company needs to maintain a regular internal process. Plan stages to communicate with the customer about three milestones- What has been achieved, what were the results, and what are the future steps and execution process. This helps revise customer engagement.
For instance, you can have a 30-60-90 days checkpoint schedule based on each other consecutively. By the end of the 90th day, both you and your customer should have clarity about the future plan and renewal conversation. You can also plan a final reminder prior to 15-30 days of contract termination.
The checkpoint cycle depends variably on different industries. Just make sure to leave no surprises for your customers. As occupied human beings, every customer needs reminders and time to evaluate their decision. The consistency of support and checkpoint emails act as decisive factors for renewal.
-
Create Early Follow-Up Email Templates
To save workload and time create templates of checkpoint emails beforehand. The customer success department deploys useful sales tools to design follow-up email templates and scheduled email timelines with automation so that they are sent promptly.
It’s difficult to keep track and follow up on all customers’ account status as everyone is at a different stage of the checkpoint journey. Therefore, preschedule the important checkpoint emails at decided intervals to avoid missing out on them.
Utilize the benefits of automation software and scheduling tools to prepare timely check-ins on new and existing customers as they connect and move forward with you. To make this simpler, create templates for each follow-up email and leave personalization access to your customer success team and account managers, to modify it as customer-specific.
Customers feel engaged and informed with continuous and scheduled reminders. Consistent Communication is only possible through templates.
-
Determine Future Steps
Make your next step clear to the customers so that they can be prepared. While planning your checkpoint timeline, identify what are your next steps till you reach the next checkpoint stage.
Analyze questions such as what were the benefits and difficulties faced in the past 30 days? What were the emerging opportunities and challenges? How will you approach those challenges? How will you plan and eliminate issues? What are the customer’s expectations? Etc.
Show your customers an opaque road to their destination, so that they feel confident in your future propositions and enlarge their success landscape. Customers approach you with their problems and hope that you turn challenges into solutions, so constantly communicate and remind them of this.
Smooth and easy conversations automatically improve customer experience and thus increase renewals.
-
Collect Feedback
Asking for feedback is one of the most significant steps when it comes down to renewals of customers. Sending scheduled checkpoint e-mails to consumers opens up the way to gather customer responses which allows you to unleash a new avenue of opportunity and ultimately benefits gathering customer feedback whenever it’s needed to.
Gathering Feedback helps in-
- Rating customer experience
- Identifying weak points
- Determining the scope of business process improvement
- Measuring your milestones and achievements of a certain period or per customer
Be it a survey, be it open-text questions, or a rating scale, these always help collect information continuously instead of waiting all the time to let the argument be over and then asking. This not only helps to connect with the consumer better but also it helps in deciding the step ahead besides it eases the customer support customization.
Here are some of the golden tips to remember :
1)plan and schedule checkpoints from the 1st day, this will allow us to eradicate all future confusion.
2)Never try to surprise the consumer with new out-of-box renewal plans always make sure to discuss with your client beforehand.
3)”Time is money” so Always try to prepare to follow up e-mail templates and email delivery beforehand, which can result in saving lots of time.
Wrapping Up
Consumer needs time to time intimations from companies end. Email Checkpoints prepare you and your customer for renewal conversation from Day 1. Scheduling follow-up eliminates confusion and challenges for customers. Pre-planning email templates and activating automation saves time and decrease the workload of your customer success executive. Don’t let renewals magically pop in front of your customers- take it slow for successful results. Ultimately, it’s about providing customers with an unforgettable experience that brings them back for more.