On this month’s episode of The Customer Success Channel Podcast, brought to you by Planhat, I chatted with Jay Nathan, EVP, and CCO at Higher Logic about how to manage churn in turbulent times. Times are tough at the moment. Inflation, mixed with mass layoffs, and not to the closure of Silicon Valley Bank has led to widespread fear in the SaaS world that is ultimately affecting the customers that we serve as software companies. If you’re currently looking for strategies to prevent and reduce customer churn – you’re not alone. With the gloomy outlook for the world economy, companies are preparing for the effects of an economic downturn. Hence increased focus on churn and how to handle it. But how do you decrease the risk of churn? How do you show ROI daily to your customers? And how are you working on expansion during renewals when companies are looking to cut spending rather than increase it?
Jay Nathan is a business executive best known as co-founder of the popular Gain Grow Retain customer success leadership community. He is EVP and Chief Customer Officer at Higher Logic, an online community software platform that helps companies engage, retain, and grow their customers.
Jay has over 20 years of experience in the software industry and has held leadership roles at prominent technology companies such as Blackbaud and PeopleMatter. He is a recognized thought leader in customer success and has written and spoken extensively on the topic.
Just before this podcast recording, the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed. The tech world is definitely looking a little different these days and supporting your customers is more important than ever.
In our discussion Jay helps answer some of the tricky questions when it comes to managing churn:
- Tough times in the world right now. Tech companies are feeling it, but equally so are the companies we serve. How are you and your team supporting your customers right now?
- How are you showing ROI daily to your customers?
- “Selling is a retention strategy” – what do you mean by this? can you expand?
Some key takeaways from this discussion:
- Every company right now should be focusing as much as they can on value. Not only confirming that you’re providing value but sharing that in a quantitative way.
- From a renewal standpoint, we are working on a ‘how do we win together’ kind of approach. For example, how do we present our customers with renewal options that give them some control over the pricing and payment terms without breaking our own bank at the same time?
- We are proving the value of our product and our services every single day and we are always asking for feedback to ensure we modify our services based on what customers actually want. We keep making adjustments along the way and continue to provide value.
Make sure you listen to the full episode and let me know your thoughts in the comments!