8 Renewal Signals to watch for and Act upon

Written by Swagat Irsale, Growth Advocate. 

I am Swagat Irsale and I am a Growth Advocate who consults with start ups and scale ups in growing revenue and scaling products. 

If you are a Saas either you have a consumption based, seat based or a model which combines both of these personalised to an enterprise Customer. Whichever you choose to be suitable, the most important point is to get it executed well. Lack of doing this will not give you the consumption you expect and the completion of goals your customer expects. 

During customer journey it will be helpful if we know what are the signals which we should watch out for. These signals if known, we can act on those and help the customer, users get better and complete their goals. 

One more - AI and Saas partners should be proactive about this. Users will never focus on these tasks. Their job is to complete the task and achieve their goals. Design basics, right? 

If we act on these signals we will have less churn and higher chances of renewal. NRR and other metrics should not be an after thought. I have used these signals myself and helped customers achieve their goals and renew ... 🏆 

Here are my top 8 Renewal Signals to watch for and Act upon.

Acting on these will take care of renewals, upsells, NRR, C-sat  and many good things. 

1 - Set up completion and task, workflow configuration - 

In the case of a consumption based model it is imperative that all users of the customer have all the needed configurations made so they can flawlessly do the task. This initial configuration of tasks, use cases, workflows is a key starting point. If this is lacking, users will drop off, get dissatisfied and may never return. On the opposite side, if the system is well permissioned and configured, all users will reach to their aha moment and get value from the product. 

Watch out for user drop off due to incomplete/ incorrect configurations ... 🥇 

2 - Engagement with training and onboarding resources - 

With the advent of AI and generating tools it is easy to create content on the product, onboarding process, set up FAQs and more. These are very helpful. However, the challenge is that very limited users will feel that they should get engaged with this content and it will help them in being successful and reach their goals. 

We can watch how many users from the customer have engaged with the training and onboarding resources and how we can help them to get better at it and self-serve. 

3 - Feature usage, consumption in the first 30 days - 

It should be our goal that all users from the customer get onboarded on time, log in frequently and use the product/ consume what they are supposed to consume. The usage and consumption is sustainable only if their usage is good in the first 30 days  ... 🙋 

It is statistically proven that the usage in the first 30 days is directly correlated to the long term usage. Have you heard about Facebook’s “7 friends in 10 days”?

If the usage in the first 30 days is not up to the mark, we should carry this signal forward and act upon it.

4 - Embedding software, AI product into the daily workflow - 

We can ask this to users or watch them. Most of the users will not understand what this means, so let's not ask them. But observe what they are doing with the product/ system. Are they downloading information and using that in meetings? Are they using software to collaborate and make them productive? 

These are the most important signals which help us understand that our product is helping users in solving key use cases in their daily workflow. If this happens, the software is irreplaceable. If this is not happening it is a critical signal to watch for and act upon.  

5 - Mapping of before and after workflow - 

There are various names for it. One of them is as-is and to-be models. In many organizations it is also called or termed as change management. Customers doing this on their end is a very good signal. Some of the customers prefer to do version 1 of this during the sales process and they iterate this to version 2 when the software is purchased and being onboarded … 🤣 

For enterprises it is important that all users in different departments, locations understand how their day to day work life will change because of this change. We should help our customers in managing this change in a smoother way across the organisation. 

6 - Understanding of Usage drop off points - 

Time to value, number of transactions started to completed are some of the metrics which we can track. There are many tools which make this tracking easier. The point is the users should not drop off once they start the task. Sudden drop in usage is another critical signal. 

If the % of users dropping off are too high then the customer is losing on the user acquisition as well as in user engagement. Both are hard to do in the second attempt, the success rate reduces as the time passes and costs mount up. 

If we know the signals where the users are dropping off, we can take appropriate action such as training them, adding onboarding guides, creating awareness and more. 

7 - Customer team, organisation and community engagement - 

If the customers and users are not using the product they will not have any questions for you. The more they use the product the more questions they will have and it is a good thing. It portrays that they are engaged and the product is helping them do their job well. 

I have seen that the enterprise teams which are well engaged, use the product most. If there are communities, then the vibrant community is a sign that most of your customers will renew and buy more products from you. This takes care of renewals, upsells and NRR. 

Watch and act on people's engagements. 

Will your customers/ users share feedback upon request? It is a signal. 

8 - Executive alignment and engagement - 

In b2b enterprise software this is one of the most important points of engagement. When I say executive I mean the buyer who is accountable for the software spent over the years. Assuming the contracts are 3 or 5 years. 

Signals to watch out for executive alignment are how engagement executives are? They should be aware of what is happening on a monthly basis, they should be fully connected to their teams who are using the software, aligned with the next 3-5 years vision of your product and most importantly trust teams in collaborating and working together towards meeting goals.  

Market correction, sectors not doing well, executive churn, budget compression, team attrition, execution challenges and many more will happen. If these have not happened then wait they will happen in a 3 to 5 years contract. 

Watch out for these signals and act upon these for renewals, upsells and NRR.