Manually Managing SaaS Renewals Is So Last Year: The Rise of Automation in Renewals Management

By Juhi Fadia, Correspondent  |  October 11, 2019

Common wisdom says the cost of acquiring new customers can be ten times higher than the cost of retaining existing customers.  In many companies who sell SaaS (News - Alert) offerings, there are full-time renewal management teams who are challenged to make sure all subscriptions are being paid, and that current customers receive and act on their reminder texts and emails.

Automation is a perfect solution for businesses for whom success is predicated on “recurring revenue” as more and more services are being delivered as subscriptions to businesses and consumers.

A smooth and friendly SaaS process is also part of delivering an outstanding customer experience, as implemented well, it’s easy for subscribers to agree to continue, with a simple “point and click” rather than an onerous process or, even worse, their subscriptions running out leading to non-availability of what can be vital services they rely on every day.

Without automation, ensuring renewals happen on time is labor-intensive, complex and expensive. It is a pain point for the provider and its customers.

With automation, enterprises never forget to renew an account, have multi-level reporting on where renewals stand, have insight into abandonment of subscriptions as one of the key metrics to watch, can embed “upselling” into renewal offerings, and can prioritize time spent on high-value accounts, vs. those which are spending very little on basic services.

Earlier this month, at the NetEvents Global Summit in Silicon Valley, Renewtrak announced the opening of their new global headquarters in Palo Alto, CA (News - Alert), after growing their platform and customer base of large tech companies they currently serve supporting 32 currencies and 24 languages.

Founded by international tech enterprise veteran and CEO Nick McMenemy, Renewtrak unlocks the unexploited value in the renewal process.

McMenemy said, “We help our clients retain customers with efforts shown to increase annual revenue per user an average of 45%, and even more exciting, our solution has increased average client profit by 63%.

As an example, Renewtrak announced their partnership with systems integration and distribution tech company Ingram Micro (News - Alert) and said trials are underway with other major tech players in Silicon Valley. “100% of existing clients are expanding their engagement with Renewtrak,” McMenemy said, “and this is simply because our automation solution delivers consistent value.”

Kelly Eyerman, GM Software, Ingram Micro said, “Renewtrak have automated a notoriously complex part of our business. All our specific software vendor renewals are issued more efficiently to more partners, which generates more revenue and more margin. Their professional and automated approach to this part of the business has been a welcome improvement in our sales of renewals. Our vendors and partners are seeing a difference, and we are leveraging the ability to proactively upsell and cross sell solutions.”

“This is a game-changing service that has solved the many pain points of the renewals process for our customers as well as bringing huge savings through our pay-for-performance commercial model,” McMenemy said.

He is confident in the “game share” business model, given the results they have proven with their current customers. “We are excited to start reaching out to top developer and commercial talent in Silicon Valley as part of our commitment to serve even more tech companies based in North America. Our mission is to rewire a process that is traditionally manual, lacks scale, and leaves money on the table. Using our pioneering technology and integrated performance-based commercial model, we’re certain we’ve hit the sweet spot. We are growing fast and have a clear ambition to be the tech industry’s global go-to provider for renewals.”      


Juhi Fadia is an engineer, analyst, researcher and writer covering advanced and emerging technologies.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
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