💸Building Your Renewal & Forecasting Process
Understand how to optimize your Account Management motion out of Vitally
About
This use case highlights how to build your Renewal, Forecasting and Account Management function in Vitally.
Watch the video below to see the entire build-out:
How to Build It
Step 1: Define your Audience
The first step is to identify who needs to be involved internally (i.e. who will own renewals) and externally (i.e which accounts are renewing). To simplify this, we will create a renewals segment to track accounts that are in their renewal window and set up a key role to identify who on the team owns the renewal.
Segmentation
Create an account-level segment called "Renewal" (or something similar) to group customers in this stage together. If you haven't already, you can also add additional segments for your other stage in the customer journey or to signify the plan or tier of a customer.
You can also create user segments to distinguish who the decision-maker is
Key Roles
If the individuals on your team who own renewals are not CSMs (i.e., Renewal Specialists, Account Managers, etc.), we recommend creating a custom key role. This allows you to set up a more seamless assignment strategy.
There are multiple ways to assign key roles, but there are two primary strategies:
Assign via Trait Mapping - use this when you have already assigned the key role in another system like your CRM
Assign via Playbook automation- use this when you want Vitally to assign
Step 2: Get Renewal & Account Management Data into Vitally
You're likely bringing in much of this data, but some may be new. Below, we break down some of the data that may already be in Vitally, some of the data you want to sync in via one of your integrations, and what custom data you want to build in Vitally.
Gather Data Already In Vitally
This data is likely already in Vitally but may need to be configured. First, you want to ensure your lifecycle tracking (subscribed & churn settings derived from your revenue data) is configured correctly, as this will give you access to:
ARR
Next Renewal Date
Churn
Next, you'll want to surface other relevant data points related to usage or pricing levers and CSM sentiment on a "Renewal" deck. Below is an example:
Bring Opportunities/Deals Data Into Vitally
If you have connected the Salesforce integration, you can bring in Salesforce Opportunities as custom objects. Alternatively, if you have connected the HubSpot integration, you can bring in HubSpot Deals as custom objects. Since our Salesforce and HubSpot integrations are bi-directional, your team can create and update opportunity/deal fields in Vitally.
This will allow you to trigger playbook automation from opportunity/deal info and roll up/filter essential deal info to the account level.
If you do not have Hubspot or Salesforce to bring in Custom Objects, you won't be able to auto-sync in opportunities, but you can use Zapier!
Custom Traits To Create
To create forecasting, you'll want to create some custom traits. Below are some custom traits we suggest you create:
| Trait Name | Description | Trait Type | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
Forecast | Rating classification on likeliness to renew | String | Example Values:
|
Renewal Stage | Status of where the renewal stands | String | Example Values:
|
Renewal Notice Sent | Date stamp of when initial renewal communication was sent | Datetime | This date will be set via playbook automation |
Forecast Notes | Details from AM on where renewal stands | Textarea | Take notes that are relevant to where the renewal stands or anything else that could be of importance to forecast |
Renewal Next Step | Description from AM on what needs to happen next | Textarea | Example: You can add in a note to loop in a Product Manager or Engineering to help |
Renewal Delta | Numerical +/- value of expected ARR change | Number | If using SFDC opportunities or HubSpot deals, this is likely a calculated trait; otherwise, it's a simple number |
Step 3: Templatize your Activities
During the renewal window there are certain engagements that need to take place. Whether that is in a scaled motion that relies on asynchronous & automated messaging or in a high-touch motion that requires many 1:1 interactions, it is important to define and templatize those touch-points. Below are the typical activity templates we recommend creating:
Projects - what work needs to be executed
Create a renewal project template to make the repeatable and prescriptive tasks that are required more accessible. This should include the activities the team is driving, but you may also create a milestone and tasks related to the product achievements the customer needs to experience throughout the renewal for your team to easily identify where a customer is. You can also create playbook automation to auto-complete those tasks once the required criteria has been met.
We recommend creating an "Renewal" project category to house all of your project templates related to renewal.
Conversations - what needs to be communicated
Create conversation templates for messaging that you need throughout the renewal process. Typically, we see three types of conversation templates use in the renewal process:
Automated renewal reminder
Book a renewal call
Confirmation after signature
Docs - what needs to be shared
If you need to share any info with the customer throughout the renewal process you will want to create an "Renewal" doc template. You can even embed your renewal project template to the doc if you wish to give customers visibility into their progress.
Notes - what engagements need to take place
For any calls you conduct throughout the renewal process you will want to create note templates to capture that those calls took place and provide a summary of what occurred.
Step 4: Automate the Renewal Motion
The process can now be automated with playbook automation now that templates have been created and data has been identified. Below are the steps to follow to build the playbook automation as well as additional complexities you can add to your process.
Triggers
First, choose if the playbook automation trigger should be at the Account or Organization level. Next, build your trigger criteria to enroll accounts into the playbook automation.
Critical Actions to Add
Below are key action items you will likely want to add (in order) to your playbook automation:
Proper segmentation to add accounts to the renewal segment
Create project action to assign renewal project
Conversation action to start the renewal conversation
Reply-to action to follow up on the renewal conversation
Update trait action to auto-update the renewal stage to "Notice Sent."
Step 5: Report & Visualize
The last step is to provide visibility into progress and performance throughout the renewal process. There are several things to consider:
Hubs
Many customers create a "Renewal/AM" Hub to house critical views and dashboards related to renewals and revenue.
Dashboards
Now that the data is in and the process has been automated, we will want to create dashboards to give the team a place to visualize the work and take action. There are two primary dashboards we will focus on: (1) a "Renewal" or "Forecasting" Dashboard and (2) an "Account Management Book of Business" Dashboard.
Below are videos to see the buildout of your "Renewal" or "Forecasting" Dashboard and "Account Management Book of Business" Dashboard.
Forecasting/Renewals Dashboard
Forecasting is crucial to operationalizing the Account Management function. In step 1, you brought in (or created) all the necessary data points. Now, we will put those to use in table views and dashboards. Here are the steps to build out forecasting in Vitally:
Create an Account Management Hub - This is where we will add key views
Create a table view with your AM data points from Step 1 - This is where AMs will update their forecast
Create a Dashboard and add key widgets. For example:
Add table view to the dashboard
Create a "Renewal Delta" metric widget
Create an "Upcoming Renewal by Forecast" bar chart widget
Account Management Book of Business Dashboard
It is helpful to isolate renewals on one dashboard from the rest of the work Account Managers focus on. The video above details how to build an AM dashboard. The components should include:
A breakdown of how much revenue they manage
Insight into health and CSM sentiment
Cards & Decks
Lastly, consider creating a custom Deck for key renewal activities and data. After building the deck, you can tie it to the renewal segment.
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