Is your subscription time-to-quote destroying revenue generation?
Many scale-ups in SaaS and XaaS fall into the trap of not being able to process customer subscription quotes and orders in a rapid paced process. Consequently, customers have to wait, and take actions they shouldn’t need to.
If you still use email communications with your prospects and customers, you’re already on the back foot. Ping-ponging details via emails and meetings or phone calls back and forth is a tedious process that lies at the mercy of your team members. If they for any reason cause delays in follow up, the order flow gets stuck. Not to mention all the manual labour costs that end up as sunk-cost fallacy.
Some companies take up to 30 days to process upgrades or subscription changes, resulting in frustrated customers.
3 actions you can take to change the dial:
Subscriptions can be complex to deal with in the back end, especially with subscription changes due to up- or downgrades, or new commercial plan transitions.
The following 3 step transformation strategy can turn your process power up.
#1 — Orchestrate the back-end process
Very often the ball ends up at Finance, who need to clear up uncertainties during renewals, up- or downgrades, and add-on sales. Start with a clear view on your subscription line items, what are you selling and how is pricing set up? Focus on simplification where possible. Use logical subscription product master data with clean commercial models. Then design a process to set up a subscription order flow from first billing, change control on up- and downgrades or up- and cross sales, and ensure a strong data analytical capability is in place. Create a cross-departmental process flow from sales to finance to customer services. Use price strategies such as indexing.
#2 — Automate everything using ongoing process innovation methodologies
Once the business process flows are transparent, use the right application and technology to automate the lead-to-cash subscription lifecycle. Take out manual steps that are not adding value.
#3 — Design a simple and clean customer and employee experience during the full subscription lifecycle
With the process flow the experience for both partners, customers and your own internal team should be logical and clear. Involve the right people and ensure they understand how to process information throughout the subscription lifecycle.
