Why are save programs valuable? How much can a company reasonably expect to reduce churn with save programs?

The easiest customer to convert should be the one you already have – a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If you’ve gone through the process of identifying, targeting, and converting your ideal customer, retaining that customer should usually be more cost and resource effective than converting a new customer. If you consistently lose customers at the first renewal cycle, you’re probably targeting the wrong customer or offering the wrong solution.

Save programs empower CSMs to protect important revenue streams and mobilize cross-functional teams to protect revenue streams – it’s easy for a CSM’s requests to get deprioritized amongst the many other activities that Sales and Product teams are working on. However, sometimes projects get deprioritized when they shouldn’t. Save programs give CSMs a platform to request executive-endorsed assistance from other teams in order to save strategic accounts.

Proactive save programs can save at least 20-30% of customers you expect to lose to churn – the earlier you start, the more customers you save. The better you understand early indicators of risk or lack of value, the more effective your program will be. If your product and issues are complex, you might consider starting a save program as early as 6-12 months before renewal.

Identification of At-Risk Accounts

What processes do you need to have in place to identify at-risk accounts?

Understand how your customers perceive your value – customers stay or churn because of the value they believe they are getting. If a customer is getting ROI on your product, they aren’t incentivized to look elsewhere. However, if they don’t understand, acknowledge, or have awareness of your product’s value, they have no reason to stay. For example, a customer could see improved performance but still consider replacing your product if they’re attributing that success to another factor.

Compare value to other accounts and your customer’s expectations – value is relative. If you’re creating value for your customer–but not as much value as they’d anticipated when they onboarded—that success might not be able to drive renewal. On the flip side, you can benchmark each customer’s situation against those of successful long-term customers to proactively determine whether an account should be seeing greater value to reduce future risk. An account that is beginning to stagnate or decrease in value should be flagged as yellow. Companies expect value to increase over time.

What are the different levels of account risk?

Account Type	Account profile
Green	Low account risk – this does not have to mean the customer is in perfect health. It could be that they have an acceptable amount of risk for their lifecycle stage, or that a prior issue for which a red account was created is resolved. Account Statuses should ideally not “abruptly” move from Green to Red or Vice Versa – if accounts are doing this often, you need a better system to capture leading indicators of risk

Yellow	Accounts judged to be at risk of becoming red – these also might be red accounts that have improved but the issue is not yet resolved.
Red	Accounts that are at risk – these are accounts that you judge to be at risk of churning or significantly decreasing their investment. In a scenario where you are planning for significant upside at a customer which hinges on the success of a current project, you might consider it red even if the current revenue is not at risk but the status is putting future revenue at risk.

What variables should you incorporate into your account risk scorecarding?

Variable	Examples of questions and metrics to consider
Value (hard & soft metrics)	• How does the customer measure value for our product, and how well are we delivering on that value? • How well are we meeting the customer’s needs?

Usage/ Adoption	• How frequently is the customer using our product? • Is the customer using all product capabilities/ features? Are they using the features that would provide the greatest value? • Is the customer’s adoption increasing in line with our benchmarks? • Is our product a good fit for this customer?

Engagement / Relationships	• How strong is our relationship with the customer? Do they treat us like a proactive partner? • How transparent is our relationship with the customer? Do we understand what they need? Do they understand that we will help them achieve their goals? • How engaged is their executive sponsor?

Customer feedback (qualitative & quantitative)	• C-SAT, NPS or Customer Survey results • Overall customer satisfaction and tone • Customer Escalations

Onboarding experience	• Was the onboarding experience timely, effective, and relatively painless? • Did anything go wrong?

Contractual datapoints	• How does the customer feel about the commercial aspects of the renewal contract?

Customer budget/ health	• How strong is the customer’s budget? • What constraints are they working within? • What is the health of their business?

How does account risk scoring differ from customer health scoring?

Risk scoring incorporates external factors that might affect churn – healthy accounts may be at risk due to forces outside the customer’s control. For example, the company might be going out of business, or the third party that introduced a customer might be removed from the picture, which could impact your relationship with the shared client.

Contractual issues can increase risk – since renewals often involve updates to your contract, the renewal process must account for the added friction of working through these potential obstacles while still demonstrating the value of your product and partnership. For example, a customer could be happy with the value you’re offering based on your current pricing structure, but might not reach the same conclusion with a higher future price.

See example health scorecard here:

What does an effective red/yellow account review look like? How often should you conduct them?

The weekly Account Review cadence should include…
Meeting/Activity	Objectives	Participants
CSM to update account in CRM	Identify, update, strategize on plans for yellow + reds	CSM’s
CSM Direct Managers Review	Identify, update, strategize on plans for yellow + reds	CS Direct Manager
CSM + Direct Managers Review	Review updates in CRM. Identify, update, strategize on plans for yellow + reds	CSM’s + Direct Managers
CS Managers + Leadership Review	CS managers and leadership
Sr. Leadership Review (offline)	Distribute report out to Leadership team for High level review for visibility, alignment on plans for Reds.	Sr. Leadership team + other VP’s, CS Leadership
CS + Sales Alignment	Identify, update, strategize on plans for yellow + reds.	CSM + CS Managers + Sales (inc sponsor if needed)

Use a red account process document to identify possible triggers – customers can trigger one of the red/save account criteria in many ways. CSM’s should seek to anticipate potential issues before they are triggered. Mapping out what each trigger might look like for different types of customers can help your team identify at-risk accounts earlier.

What kind of preemptive measures should you implement for accounts that are trending toward red?

Create a culture that encourages people to escalate early – encourage your team to proactively ask for help instead of mentioning problems after it is too late to solve them. If a CSM thinks there is a chance that a customer might not renew a year down the road, flagging the issue early gives your team a strategic advantage and an opportunity to course correct before the account is lost.

Develop and communicate a plan as soon as possible – gather feedback and internally align on an action plan as soon as a save account is identified. Don’t wait for the customer to tell you that they are leaving. Instead, proactively reach out and communicate your plans to fix the problem. Take bold action to redeem the relationship while you still have the opportunity.

Save Programs

What kinds of accounts justify a save program? Do you ever write off an account?

Category		Example of trigger
Onboarding issues		• Onboarding Delay of >1 month (from first intro) • Significant concerns arise about ability to deliver quality/value

Value and usage		• Live Customer > X months with no evident business value or Usage < 50% • Customer has escalated that they see limited/no business value

Renewal or contract issues		• Customer < 6 months away from renewal and <75% likelihood of renewal • Customer raised issues would put them at risk related to pricing, renewal, opt out, etc • Customer past due on paying bills for > 3 months

Sponsorship or engagement		• Lost Business Sponsor for project • Disengaged/non-responsive Business Sponsor • No Business Review in > 6 months

Product gaps		• CSM Identified Product Gap which will severely impact customer success if not resolved ASAP • Customer escalated Product Gap they can’t move forward without

What does an effective save playbook look like? What are common steps in a save program?

While the specific actions of a save playbook differ based on the account and its trigger, there are universal steps to saving any account – at its core, any save playbook is designed to re-establish the customer’s belief in the value of your product and the strength of your relationship.

Step 1: Understand the problem – make sure you identify the root cause of the problem – not a symptom. The most common root cause is poor communication and lack of alignment between you and your customer.

Step 2: Define a path to resolution – what is the framework you intend to follow to get from where you are to a resolution? You may not know every detailed step at this point, but try to outline a high level plan that you can further develop.

Step 3: Identify key next steps – what are you doing next? Lay out the next few key action items that you will be tactically following. These could include external actions such as reaching out to the customer to better understand issues or make recommendations, etc., or they could include internal actions you are taking to address shortcomings.

Step 4: Manage regular cadences of review and customer communication – it takes discipline to manage yourself, your team, and your stakeholders to ensure that everyone follows through on the agreed-upon plan and that you are progressing it and regularly updating it as the situation evolves You need discipline here so that when you over-communicate to your customer about how you are solving their problem, you have evidence to back you up.

Step 5: track progress based on relevant success metric – regularly gauge the success of your action plan based on how well you are addressing the issue that triggered the save program. This involves addressing both the issue itself (e.g., delivering value as measured by X) and helping the customer perceive that value (e.g., understanding how your contribution directly enables X value).

What are common remediation tactics to overcome issues at red accounts?

Remediation actions rebuild trust while solving the problem your customer cares about – if you have an excellent customer relationship, small problems with product, onboarding, and experience won’t put the account at risk because they know you can fix it. Below are examples of how you can simultaneously address the trigger and focus on the relationship.

Issue Area	Common remediation	Owners
Onboarding was not successful	Rip the Band-Aid off and re-onboard the customer – Fix the root of the problem; it’s difficult to recover from a poor implementation	Customer Success

Usage is lower than it should be	Build the business case for usage – by the customer. Clearly lay out the specific value your product can add and how the customer can access that value in a way that helps them hit their own goals. Then, provide support and training to ensure that they can use your product as needed to hit their goals.	Product / Customer Success

Customer hasn’t been communicative, and announces they won’t be renewing out of the blue	Commit to over communicating – so you can overcome the lack of trust and re-align yourself with your customer’s priorities. For enterprise accounts, an executive sponsor should support the CSM by overcommunicating with the customer sponsor and re-instilling confidence in your plan to fix the underlying problem. Overcommunicating includes telling your sponsor what you will do, updating them when you are doing it, and connecting with them again to tell them that you have done it (and doing so repeatedly throughout the remediation process).	Executive sponsor

Renewal pricing is too expensive	Help the customer understand how the new pricing structure will still work for them – understand their cause for concern and how the price relates to the value they are getting. Is the value aligned with expectations? Are they seeing ROI of at least 2-3X what their pricing will be? If not, then escalate internally to see what might be done to address. You may need to build a business case outlining the customer’s ROI and justifying the increase.	Finance, Sales, or Customer Success

What goes into creating an action plan?

Action plans are straightforward and make it easy to keep the team on track and solicit feedback from the leadership team – while specific action plans differ by product and customer, they all follow the same basic structure.

Steps for an action plan include:

Issue summary explaining the problem, why it deserves escalation, and the strategy to resolve it
Week-by-week plan for implementing that strategy
Weekly updates on what’s changed, what’s in progress, and what’s next
Help needed flag to ensure other teams provide support in a timely fashion

Who should manage the save program? Who is involved with running the save program with individual accounts?

Customer Success manages most aspects of a save program – the Head of CS (or their delegate) should manage the save program itself, while CSMs usually own specific cases. However, executive sponsors own cases driven by contractual issues.

Department owners/ delegates are responsible for function-specific deliverables – while CSMs are accountable for the save case itself, the relevant representative is responsible for making sure that department-specific tasks are completed. For example, if a feature isn’t working properly, Product is responsible for fixing it and Product will likely partner with the CSM to communicate the plan to make relevant updates to the customer.

How do you bring other functions into the save program motion?

Share information and request support from other teams during standing save account program meetings – representatives from relevant departments (including Product and Sales) should attend all regular save account program meetings to act as a conduit of information for their teams. These delegates can pull individuals into specific initiatives as appropriate. The endorsed urgency of save account programs also empowers CSMs to get help quickly by escalating issues that aren’t prioritized correctly by colleagues from other departments.

CSMs should lead frequent calls with the cross-functional partners helping resolve each case – CSMs drive ad hoc calls that include everyone involved in resolving the issue at hand. These meetings help drive alignment and improve execution by providing an opportunity for the full team to work closely together.

How should your approach differ for enterprise customers vs SMB customers?

For enterprise customers:

Executive sponsors are an instrumental component – since trust and collaboration is the basis of your ongoing partnership, bringing on important and strategic sponsors helps rebuild customer confidence and create an opportunity for you to redeem the relationship.
Use QBRs to assess how well you’re delivering value – enterprise client QBRs are an invaluable opportunity to ask customers for feedback and proactively identify at-risk accounts. Risk scores alone aren’t enough to fully assess account risk, but in-person touchpoints can add a qualitative perspective to your analysis.

For SMB customers:

Be proactive and document common issues – your CS team should understand the top 10-20 issues that put accounts at risk and develop streamlined, repeatable approaches for solving them.
Standardize playbooks – due to the greater scale of your customer base and the lower value of each individual customer, SMB save programs must capitalize on renewal trends and standardized playbooks that can be implemented at scale.

How much investment/ attention should you devote to saving accounts? When should you offer discounts or financial incentives to stay?

The cost of attrition is higher than expected – unless a fundamentally unprofitable customer (e.g., someone completely outside of your ICP) is at risk of not renewing, you should usually invest in retaining your customer. There is a reason your customer bought your product in the first place, and there is a reason that you invested in converting them. You should prioritize retention if the cost of saving a customer (and continuing to support them) is less than the cost of acquiring a new one to replace them.

The soft costs associated with churn can become malicious – in addition to the direct financial impact of losing a customer, churn can create broader problems for you in the marketplace. High churn can be a signal of poor product performance or customer service, and retaining certain customers might provide a strategic advantage from a branding perspective. If you stand to lose more than just the immediate revenue an account generates, it is likely worth investing in saving the account.

Using financial incentives to save accounts should be a last resort – while you can sometimes convince customers to stay based on price alone, this rarely resolves the root cause of the account risk. This customer could become a save account again at your next renewal cycle.

Outcomes

How do you capture and implement learnings from your save program?

Conduct post-mortems after saving and losing important accounts – it’s equally useful to learn from successful cases and unsuccessful cases. While most of your findings will be behavioral and specific to a unique set of circumstances, these represent valuable opportunities for your team to celebrate its wins and build upon their learnings.

Periodically review key trends and macro-level performance – take a step back to identify potential areas of improvement and lessons learned that can make better and more effective use of your team’s time in the future. Large companies have dedicated escalation teams to save red accounts, but smaller companies should make time to go through this exercise every 6 months.

How do you measure the success of a save program?

Look at renewal results like:

Churn rate – churn is the most important save program metric. A successful program will reduce the quantity of red accounts and resolve them more quickly, which should have a downstream impact on churn.
Number/Percentage of Red Accounts Saved – measuring saves allows your team to celebrate your wins. While churn accounts for saved accounts, measuring saves separately demonstrates the incremental benefits your program has generated.
Net Revenue Retention – save accounts that end up renewing or even expanding are a lagging indicator of program success.

Look at customer outcomes and feedback likes:

Customer Satisfaction – a happy customer becomes an advocate for your organization. Ask for qualitative feedback to gauge the satisfaction of customers who were once at risk of not renewing.
Quantifiable customer-specific metrics – if a customer’s trigger was tied to a quantifiable metric (e.g., showing value that was missing), measure the added value your program creates to evaluate how well specific cases are handled.

Overall

What are the most important things to get right?

Accounts are saved by confident leaders with strong plans – big problems won’t go away if you take a wishy-washy approach to addressing them. Customers won’t stay unless you prove that they should. Have the confidence to identify save accounts early, take bold action, over-communicate with your customer, and hold your team accountable to keep the project on track.

Have clear ownership The CSM (or whoever owns the red account) needs to take full ownership for the actions needed to resolve the issues that turned the account red. This often means chasing down other people inside or outside the company and paying very close attention to next steps.

Have sponsorship from the right leaders – big problems can’t be solved alone, and you’ll often need strong sponsorship from Product, Sales, or other leaders in the organization to help ensure teams are working in concert.

What are common pitfalls?

Don’t be afraid to ask your team for help – asking for support enables your team to help you brainstorm and devise a way to save a valuable account for the business. If you wait too long to escalate, your chances of saving the account will decrease significantly.

Executive save program meetings can harm a CSM’s prospects if they aren’t well-prepared – consider these meetings a valuable opportunity – not an easy solution to a problem. The CSM should come prepared to present a plan and ask for feedback.

Solving the wrong problem won’t save the account – CSMs often fail to develop strategic enough action plans and end up solving surface-level issues instead of underlying causes. Invest the time and energy into building the right save team and don’t be afraid to leverage them.

Running “Save” Programs for At-Risk Accounts