How to handle renewals in your pipeline?

[#1]

I work for a SAAS business and we have annual contracts. I have been struggling with the best way to handle renewals with a deal pipeline. At the moment I have a separate pipeline broken up into 1- 3 Months, 3-6 Months, 6-9 Months, 9-12 Months then won lost. When a successful renewal occurs we repeat the cycle. This feels like a real hack, does anyone know of a better solution? 

[#2]

@FesAskari_SIC, @Samantha_Alford, @kcooper is this something you have experience with?

Also tagging our Inbound Professor @KyleJepson who should have some insights to share on best practice use of deals. 

[#3 · Accepted solution]

hi @roisinkirby, @Dan1

We have two types of deals in our pipeline - net-new and renewals. 

For renewals, we still work to deal stages -  our Account Managers (AM) re-engage the account Decision Makers (DM) and work through the renewals process. This is managed by deal stages, rather than time periods. We are not SaaS providers but do sell HubSpot licenses as part of our agency agreements of course.

We have custom fields for contract start and end dates and then an internal trigger alert email for a renewal c. 90 days out.

Our internal email then kick-starts the account renewal engagement process. I only get involved if the AM can't manage the renewal or flags a potential issue. This was actually of more value when we worked to 12-month contracts as we have moved to 3-month project sprints and the AM is closer to the DM on a more regular basis. 

Do you think a call into the account is worthwhile to identify renewal issues early on, or to seek out upsell opportunities? A friendly chat can be worth its weight in gold! 

(P.S. I didn't see your question properly when I responded earlier)

[#4]

We have initiated quarterly Health Check calls to all our customers, which have really helped flag and fix potential issues before they become actual issues AND have increased our up/cross selling. 

[#5]

We have a similar process and we use task's to ensure the quarterly calls take place. 

[#6 · Accepted solution]

We are also a SaaS business with annual contracts (or 3 year contracts), and we handle renewals much in the same vein as you... We have our Sales Pipeline and our Renewal Pipeline. It made sense for us to do that because the stages and weights didn't line up at all for our renewals. So the stages that we have are Renewal Anticipated (30%), Quote Acceptance (40%), Renewal Confirmed (70%), Verbal No (10%) and Closed Won and Closed Lost.  

Once a deal is Closed Won (either new business or a renewal) we create a deal right away for next year's renewal, and put it in Renewal Anticipated...where it will then sit till a quote is sent out 60-90 days in advance of the renewal, and once the customer acknowledges receipt of the quote we move it to Quote Acceptance. It moves to either Renewal Confirmed or Verbal No when they state that they will or will not be moving forward with the renewal, and then Closed Won or Closed Lost from there. It has worked very well for us so far. 

You can set up workflow to have a deal auto-created when one moves to Closed Won, but I found that using Zapier to set up a zap to create a new deal allowed me to create a more complete deal record than the workflow, so we do that to help automate the process...and to make sure that a renewal doesn't fall through the cracks because someone forgot to make next year's deal. 

[#7]

Love the auto-renewal deal Zap here!

[#8]

@kcooper great shout on the zapier auto renewal, that will certainly help automate some of the process. 

[#9]

Thanks for calling me in @roisinkirby and apologies for being so late to the party.  I'm not sure that I can add more than what @FesAskari_SIC and @kcooper have added to this post, as both are pretty well aligned with (and an improvement on) what we're doing for clients.  I'd love to hear more about how the Zap gives you better automation than the workflow for the creation of deals.

[#10]

@Samantha_Alford I like the Zap better because it allows for me to pre-populate more fields.

Using the HubSpot workflow I can pre-populate Deal Name, HubSpot Owner, Pipeline, Deal Stage, Days to Close from Create Date, and Amount (a static amount for all deals). 

Using my Zap, I can pre-populate Deal Name, HubSpot Owner, Pipeline, Deal Stage, Deal Type (custom droplist field), Days to Close from Create Date, and Amount (the amount of the closed won deal I am replicating). 

It isn't a HUGE improvement, but hey - every little bit counts. 

[#11]

Hi, this sounds brilliant and just what I'm looking for. But I'm really struggling to create the Zap recipe. Is there any chance you could share your recipe on here or with me directly? You'd really help a brother out if you did! Thanks in advance

[#12]

@vinitpatel

Sure!

Trigger App = HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM Trigger = New Deal in Stage

HubSpot CRM Account = ...you will have to set yours there yourself...

Set up HubSpot CRM Deal = Pipeline = Renewal Pipeline, Stage = Closed Won (we have a separate pipeline for our renewals, which really helps to focus this Zap on only renewals)

Action App = HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM Action = Create Deal

HubSpot CRM Account = same as above account...

Edit Template = again you will have to do this yourself, but if you have difficulties feel free to ask

Tada!

[#13]

Hi,  My name is mathieu and i am setting up HubSpot for our slaes department.  i am very interested in the renewals questions as we have the same kind of problematic here.

Our contracts are 12 months long and processes for those contracts differs a lot from renewals...  

I am trying to set up the workflow you describe here : "Once a deal is Closed Won (either new business or a renewal) we create a deal right away for next year's renewal, and put it in Renewal Anticipated...where it will then sit till a quote is sent out 60-90 days in advance of the renewal, and once the customer acknowledges receipt of the quote we move it to Quote Acceptance. It moves to either Renewal Confirmed or Verbal No when they state that they will or will not be moving forward with the renewal, and then Closed Won or Closed Lost from there. It has worked very well for us so far. "

But I can find my way around it.  Would you mind sharing a screenshot  this workflow with me so I can set it up for us as well?   Kind regards,    Mathieu/      

[#14]

Hi Mathieu, @Math

Some deal automation features are only available at certain license levels I believe. Do you have Pro or Enterprise HubSpot?

[#15]

Hi, 

Thank you for your answer.

We have a sales PRO account.

Mathieu