When to Stop Targeting a Customer

Every SaaS company is now pushing to create more revenue from existing customers through their Strategic Account Management and Customer Success. Expansion revenue is a key factor of a company’s growth as the cost of acquisition for a dollar from existing customer is 5 times lesser than a dollar from new business.

As every AE’s and CSM’s start chasing customers for their expansion targets, it is also important to understand when to stop chasing targets. Just as we all say, ‘Bend and don’t break ‘. There are few things to remember when you are an account manager

Nobody is comfortable when you push the customer for a sale, especially when they are an existing customer. You are risking all the reputation created by your excellent onboarding and support for a few extra dollars. Play the long game, make your customers understand the value of your product.

Conduct QBR’s with the customer. Understand their usage and see if they are using the product to its saturation and see if they have a room for improvement. Every business’s target should be providing value to customer, so don’t try an expansion unless there is a room for improvement left.

Support tickets help you understand the customer’s perspective of our product. Read their support queries, their responses and calls. It’s not advisable to approach for an expansion when they still have support tickets unanswered or if they have been facing issues for quite some time.

Keep an eye on news alerts, it is not advisable to seek opportunity for expansion when the customer’s or your company recently had a PR crisis. For example, don’t approach when you have had a considerable downtime. You can also use this for your advantage and approach for an expansion when a company had recent investments or acquisitions.

Even if we are not making revenue from the customers at this point, their feedbacks are very valuable and can help you improve your product in a positive way.

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Written By - Chameli Kuduva, Founder - SaaS Insider