Once a month our entire company gets together for lunch. We use this opportunity to acknowledge one of our employees and let them know how much we appreciate their hard work. We also use this time to speak to the group about one of our shared values or to reiterate our vision. Since, we’re adding new employees all the time, it’s important to revisit the same themes and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Last month we talked about renewals. Astonish Results is a SaaS (software as a service) business. Clients pay us monthly for a fixed period of time. At the end of their contract, they can choose to stop the service. Obviously, we want them to continue with us since it’s much cheaper to keep a client than it is to get a new one (see my previous posts on this subject). The fact is, every business should be concerned with renewals.
It’s really important for ALL employees to understand this. Think about it this way. If a new customer signs a 36 month agreement, you have 36 months to prove to them that staying with you is a good idea. If every employee clearly understands the impact they have on renewals, it can only mean good things.
Some companies have disconnected from the reality of customer loyalty. Others ignore renewals alltogether. At Astonish Results, we see this sometimes with our customers. They are actually affraid of proactively contacting clients coming up for renewals.
Obviously, the bigger a company gets the more disconnected the employee can be from the importance of renewals. The interaction usually goes like this: the customer get’s ticked and there is an effort to try to “win them back”. Therein lies the problem. If the entire company was focused on “winning” customers every day, renewals wouldn’t be a problem.
During our lunch, I asked everyone to think about what they do and how what they do contributes to our client’s results. In other words, how does what they do each day cause our clients to either want to stay with us or leave us? Each employee must have this clearly defined in their minds so they can execute. Managers are responsible for clarifying the message.
At the end of the day all that matters in renewals, even if you’re not a SaaS company.