A Guaranteed Formula for Increasing Revenue Retention and Account Expansion
A Case Study of Account Management at Cloudflare.
Here is a rundown of how I ran accounts at Cloudflare. Starting from the day that an AE inked the deal and passed a new client into my hands. At times I was managing up to 70 accounts at a time at Cloudflare, which is challenging, but a hyper-growth startup requires hard work, and with the following system it is possible to deliver excellent service at scale.
Day 1:
Send Welcome email introducing myself:
Include onboarding deck/PDF for review
Ask new client for a 1 hour session to begin the onboarding process with a Solutions Engineer (SE).
Send an email that specifically highlights key items in their contract:
Note: Almost no one will read a 10-20 page legal agreement. It is helpful in building this new relationship that you outline any specific agreements clearly for your non-lawyer client.
Include their renewal date!
This is critical. All SaaS contracts auto renew, which is OK, and can lead to angry clients if they feel you’ve pulled a fast one on them by not making this clear to them. So send an email on day one, and put the renewal date in bold print in that email so they are clear on the date and can not come back in a year and say they didn’t know.
Include any specific agreements not in the standard contract such as:
Out clause
Case Study agreement
List of specific features they have access to
Etc.
Set Quarterly Business Review tasks in SalesForce (or Trello, or wherever you manage your ongoing tasks)—3 months, 6 months, 9 months. Do this on day one so you don’t have to think about it. With this list you will know exactly which QBRs you need to work on week over week throughout the year.
Put their new contract in their account in SalesForce and label it clearly:
e.g. “Contract 1, 2/17/2023”
Then add all new contracts to the same place with the same label format.
This will save you a ton of time in the coming months and years. This system also makes it way easier to pass an account to a teammate or allow them to find a contract if you are OoO.
Map the account: Who are you talking to? Who is on their team? Who else could you be in touch with in the org?
You need to have contacts with 3-5 people in the org because the job market is fluid and people move on. You do not want to have your key contact leave the organization and be stuck sending blanket emails to other folks in that org to see who is going to pick up the rope. That is not good account management.
Take notes on every call: Ideally save these to SalesForce or have a centralized location for your notes that the whole company has access to. This helps you remember what is going on, helps your teammates if an account gets passed, and helps you if you go on vacation.
Week 1:
Once you have your onboarding session scheduled. Send your client a clear check list of all the tasks their team has to perform.
e.g.:
Create Cloudflare Account
Add Domains
Change NS records
Etc.
Put these in order of importance! Have your client do the basic work first, then if there is an important product they paid for make sure that is high on the list of tasks.
Weeks 2-4:
Be “politely persistent” during the first month you are working with a new client:
Email them 2x per week to remind them of the next step in your onboarding process to keep the ball rolling. I had no shame sending upwards of 6 emails for every one response. No one will ever complain about over delivering on service.
Have a clear Road Map outlined for where your client is headed:
What does “fully onboarded” look like for YOU (not what it looks like for the client—your client has a day job and adding this new service is just a part of it, so stay on them to keep working to adopt your whole service suite). You want ALL products and features turned on so your client is receiving maximum value. You know what this looks like. Your client may not.
Q1 Check In:
Three Months from the first day you contacted your new client, send them an email that shows them:
Where they are on the RoadMap to complete onboarding
Graphs, Data, Charts, Numbers that articulates the value your service is providing them.
At Cloudflare this was money saved by a high cache-hit rate, DDoS attacks prevented, WAF events blocked, etc.
This is your first opportunity to expand the account!
If the onboarding process went well, and your client is receiving tons of value from your service, then add to this email a list of 2-3 new products that would SOLVE A PROBLEM for them.
I would keep a list of new Cloudflare products in a Google doc, written up in my own language with links to the product page that I would select from and paste into my QBR emails. This saved time and allowed me to pick specific products that would be useful to a specific client.
You can make this a casual remark at the bottom of your email. “Just in case it would be helpful, we have these new tools that could help you with XYZ.” The more specific to their use case you can make the pitch the better.
Go visit them if possible with budget / time. (More on this below.)
Q2 Check in:
Repeat the same process from Q1 Check In.
Q3 Check in—Ideally in person:
Repeat the same process for Q1 Check In, and this time you really want to make the effort to go visit them.
You need to secure the renewal, and since you are bringing out their contract it is a great time to add new products to it.
At Month 8 of the contract, send out an email reminding your client of their renewal date (attached their contract to that email because they will for sure have lost it by then), and ask them when would be a good time for dinner with their team.
The 8 month mark gives clients enough time to make decisions, and gives you enough time to win them over if they want to look at the competition.
You DO NOT want to let renewals pass by with an auto-renew. If that happens you really don’t know how strong your customer base is, and you risk upsetting the client by not giving them a heads up about the contract dates.
A note on in person time with your client:
This meeting is absolutely critical. So far we’ve discussed the “science” of account management so to speak, processes, systems, and such. Having a great interaction with your clients in person is an “art”. And how are you going to get your fast-growing account team to nail this very important meeting? Have them read one book: “How to Win Friends & Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
This book has such a cheesy title that no one ever reads it. So if you do read it you are way ahead of the pack. First published in 1936, “How to Win Friends & Influence People” has been a best seller for 87 years! Is a master work in handling other human beings.
I’m going to write a whole blog on this book and “the Art of Account Management '', so I’ll only express a few highlights here.
When you meet with your clients in person you MUST let them do ALL the talking: become genuinely interested in them, and encourage them to talk about themselves as much as possible. Listen to stories about their favorite sports teams, their black belt in martial arts, their child’s latest accomplishment, their crazy work-life balance, and whatever else they want to talk about. And as you are asking and listening, make them feel important—and do it sincerely. The people we get to interact with are amazing beings. This meeting with them is your chance to uncover their unique stores and deeds and struggles they’ve overcome. You have this very brief time to get a glimpse of the gold of a human life. Don’t waste a minute of that time talking about yourself!
I guarantee if you ask genuine questions, and listen deeply to your clients over dinner for 2-3 hours you will have stories and shared laughter and shared humanity enough to build a strong relationship. Strong enough to pull you through the hard times of technical issues, org changes, and renewal periods. People want to do business with people they know and like. Get to know your clients and make damn sure they know you like them and are very interested in them.
Renewal:
If you’ve done all the work above this should be a guarantee. On day one of the new contract, rinse and repeat the process.
Miscellaneous:
Answer all emails on the day you receive them! Even if it is just to say: “I see this and I will respond.”
Even if you can’t solve their issue right away, send them updates daily. Your clients need to know they are your top priority.
Have a system to track feature requests.
This is key for Product Management. Each time a client suggests a new feature, it is a “vote” for the feature. If a feature gets enough votes, it should probably be prioritized on the Engineering road map.
Make sure your PMs have this list and talk to them about what your client requested.
Have a system also to follow up with each client that requests X feature when it is built so you can sell it!
Go the extra mile: talk to them at 11pm sometime. Do it once or twice. You don’t need to make a habit of this, and I would suggest not doing that because you also need to set clear boundaries regarding your working hours, but one diving catch or two will really go a long way with people.
Set boundaries: it may take a week to get an engineer on the phone. That is OK. Clients will value the service you offer them more if it is limited. Scarcity creates value.
If you have an upset client: listen, listen listen.
Listen to them! One of the most powerful things you can do for another human being is be quiet and listen to everything they have to say. You don’t have to agree with any of it, just listen and make sure they feel that you have absorbed what they said. You can turn a lot of heated conversations around by letting someone vent and feel their complaints have been heard and understood.
If they are still upset: get executives involved as soon as you can and have them listen. Sometimes people just want to be heard by the right people.
Would you like help setting up your CSM team? Let’s talk!
Email: andrew@winwithlevitateconsulting.com
Website: https://winwithlevitateconsulting.com/
Love the bit about the cache-hit rate