Who Should Own Renewals?

Doug Caviness

Is the topic of 'who should own renewals' being debated or controversial within your company?

If yes, I'd enjoy hearing how you're going about solving this question. This seems to be a common challenge for many organizations.

@Jack Johnson gave a really good session today during TSIA Interact, entitled 'Who Should Own Renewals?'

I recommend viewing this to anyone looking to get a fuller understanding of this and the framework Jack recommends using. He did highlight that the topic renewal ownership is relatively controversial in many organizations.

[Deleted User]

Don't be shy, just open that can of worms 😊! Here's a recent research report on that topic by @Jack Johnson

https://www.tsia.com/resources/who-should-own-renewals

In addition to Jack, I think it would be interesting to bring in some expertise from varying roles and perspectives on this topic:

1. Customer Success perspective: @Carlos Alves, @Peter Larsen, @Kelsey Hunsinger
2. Sales perspective: @Christine Sei, @Lynn Fraser, @nahin sanchez
3. TSIA Research: @Phil Nanus from the Customer Success perspective

Peter Larsen

Focusing on vendor-defined offers, for which my organization aligns with, I am in agreement with all thoughts presented by Jack. I believe many of the "what-if" scenarios are covered. Persona's, disciplines, etc. are discussed.

What I will add is that the Renewals business model must align with your Customer Journey Model. For example, and in 2020, Sales Account Exec's were removed from renewal process, especially for Mid and upper-tier Tech Touch customers. Increased ownership placed on Renewals rep and CSM. More accountability for the latter.

Bottom-line: CSM increased responsibility to ensure a seamless renewal, while "listening" for increased financial opportunities. This adjustment required editing our customer journey model. As Phil so perfectly states, "Put the right resource, at the right point in your customer journey, that delivers the best experience but in the most cost effective manner."

Important note - Unless a significant Upsell opportunity, even High Touch renewals are owned by Renewals Rep and CSM. But of course, migrations. cross-sells, significant requests for subscription discounts, etc. will have the account exec. involved.

Some thoughts - Digital (e-commerce) processes are dominant for Tech Touch customer renewals.

steve tennant

I like the T-model and @Phil Nanus' blog post - lots of great ideas there that I'm aligned with. The guiding principle to put the right resource at the right point in your customer journey that delivers the best experience in the most cost-effective manner is on the money. I did not see "Expansion Potential" as one of the factors in the white paper that I was thinking to include, but Phil added that in his excellent blog post.

There's another tradeoff here - a Customer Success team that has renewal responsibility will have more power and authority within the company, because they'll optimize resources cross the customer lifecycle to protect and expand renewals and over time, be accountable for more revenue than Sales (if Sales = new business, Success = renewals). On the flip side, I believe that comes with potential lost customer trust, if CSMs come across to customers as focused on renewals rather than getting the customer to value.

For those reasons, I am very aligned with the T-model. Give Sales the high value deals, high expansion opportunities, and keep sales "in" on the renewal based on triggering conditions (lost sponsor, etc.). For straightforward, low complexity, lower value renewals, give it to a renewals rep as part of the CS team. I have seen this work well at my clients.

Phil Nanus

I'll drop this here....

Put the right resource, at the right point in your customer journey, that delivers the best experience but in the most cost effective manner. The resource that @Patrick Carmitchel put forward is great. The answer will vary for a $50M born in the cloud startup versus a muti-billion dollar company.

Here are some more thoughts that I put in a blog.

https://www.tsia.com/blog/how-to-increase-revenue-responsibility-within-customer-success

Carlos Alves

@Patrick Carmitchel , I think CSMs should NOT own renewal quota. Pre-sales and Commercials should have these goals and having the responsibility for commercial negotiations, deals, etc.

CSM may assist on bringing information in a timely manner about the relationship and the experience the customer is having. Or else they may become "another sales person".

StevenForth

@Carlos Alves That is an interesting thought. I am not sure I agree. I think customer success is more effective when it is accountable for renewals. Having a direct business metric gives more access to resources and focusses behaviors. Are you concerned that the need to sell will interfere with the relationship?