As a Commercial Manager for Maxemail at Xtremepush for almost 6 years, you can imagine I have built up some very good relationships over the years. I am regularly in touch with our customers to understand their needs and work with them to put together a new agreement for their forthcoming contract term.
Whilst it goes without saying that our customers have a dedicated Account Manager who is in direct contact on a more regular basis than myself, my conversations with our customers are different to the ones that the Account Managers are having, which are more day-to-day and strategy related, I am speaking to them about the contractual and commercial side of the account.
I am analysing our customer accounts daily to understand any trends in sending activity, making sure that clients have the right sending volumes for their account and if there is a need for them to upgrade those volumes. This gives me a good understanding of how our clients operate before I engage in a renewal conversation with them, usually 8-10 weeks before the renewal is due.
So why don’t we Auto-Renew?
We have always prided ourselves on understanding the needs of our customers using our email marketing platform Maxemail, making sure that they are on the right package for their needs. Often I will be in conversations with our clients increasing their monthly email send volumes as they have been introducing new and exciting email marketing programmes into their strategy.
GDPR was expected to have a big impact on the industry, however, I am pleased that the majority of our clients have been incredibly diligent in the way they have been handling their customer data. However, some of our clients saw GDPR as an opportunity to spring clean their data and reduce the overall monthly send volume they required.
If we auto-renewed our contracts, many of our customers wouldn’t necessarily be on the right package and may find that they incur unexpected and additional costs for over sending their quota. In my opinion, this isn’t a great way to build and maintain a relationship with our customers.
To ensure every customer has the best package for their needs, we made the decision to not automatically renew a contract and would seek a new agreement every 12 months. Throughout our industry, I have heard of other suppliers automatically renewing contract unless written notice is provided. Personally, I find this ludicrous and poor customer service. Time and time again we have new clients joining us stating this as a factor in why they are leaving the incumbent provider.
Our policy gives our customers the opportunity to review their current contract, looking at the number of credits they committed to over the last 12 months, the results they generated and what their plans for the next 12 months are. This aids them in making a decision of what they can commit to moving forward and we can provide the best package to suit!
I won’t lie, I would love for all of our clients to buy another 200 million email credits every month and spend 50x more than the year before for example, but more importantly, it’s about making sure the client is happy with the package on offer and the level of service, support and positive user experience they get that has them re-signing with Maxemail year on year. This explains why we have an over 98% retention rate on renewals year on year.
Our customer embraces the fact of knowing 100% that we won’t just renew their contract and not to speak to them, but welcome the opportunity to engage, understand and agree on a contract that works best for both parties.
That, in summary, is the key to a good long retention cycle that will keep your customers coming back year on year.
Simple but extremely effective!
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