The 4-Point Checklist for Customer Retention & Growth

The B2B sales market is highly competitive and businesses are all in a race to find new customers. There is a heavy focus on prospecting and outbound sales efforts for new customers to fuel business growth. However, when it comes to establishing customer growth strategies, companies are losing sight of an invaluable asset: their existing customers. 

If you’re aiming for sustained success, you have to implement strategies for customer retention and growth. When you build solid processes that focus on retention, you can avoid the month-to-month or year-to-year customer churn. 

The competitive nature of the B2B sales environment is driven mainly by tight budgets and the fact that more people are involved in the sales process. Sellers have had to adjust from the dated mindset of a single buyer to now communicating their value to teams. This is explained in the NTENT framework, a modern and actionable framework built for modern B2B selling. 

You have to offer both teams (user and impact) the value they’re looking for under the confines of their budget, which is often under constant scrutiny. This has made acquiring new customers harder than ever. Acquisition remains an important piece of growth, but sellers need to show their existing customers the same effort. You’re 50-60% more likely to successfully sell to your existing customers than to new ones. You won them once, but that doesn’t always secure their business in the long run. This is where your retention and customer growth strategies come in.

Customers want value exchange-based relationships, especially in a B2B market. They want their salespeople to prioritize valuable interactions and make them smarter. Being likable helps, but at the core, it’s how you add value that really matters. Establishing customer growth strategies that prioritize value is the key to stopping churn. 

In this article, we’ll take you through our 4-point checklist for companies to stop bleeding customers and start retaining them. Implementing these customer growth strategies will help you transform your approach to customer retention so you can see sustainable growth.

• • Monthly “check-ins” and QBRs
  • Renewal Timing 
  • Multiple Points of Contact 
  • Quantifiable Goals

Customer Growth Strategies Checklist

Monthly “check-ins” and QBRs

Monthly “check-ins” or quarterly business reviews (QBRs) have to be value-added interactions. These touchpoints should not be about touching base or catching up. No one will want to meet with you if your QBRs become a check-in where you talk about insights that have no real value to the customer. Make these meetings part of your customer growth strategy and keep them packed with value for the customer.

The key to value-based monthly “check-ins” and QBRs is to always have a piece of unique value to share. When you’re meeting with executives, remember that they want to meet with people who make them smarter. You don’t want to waste their time by using these calls exclusively for troubleshooting or discussing product usage. You’ll want to focus on your client’s priorities and how you’re helping them to achieve their goals. For these conversations to be valuable, relevant, and helpful in retaining your customers, keep these dos and don’ts in mind: 

Do’s:

• • Set a clear intention for the meeting to be about the bigger picture, like their priorities, what’s top of mind, and how you can help them achieve those goals
  • Start the meeting by reviewing the top priorities from the last quarter and discuss if anything has changed 
  • Come prepared with a piece of unique value to add to the meeting. Example: an article about a trend in their space or insights gained from working with another client that can be applied to them

Don’ts:

• • Don’t make the meeting about troubleshooting or feedback
  • Don’t use these meetings as a simple check-in, touch, or catch-up 
  • Don’t fill the meeting up with usage metrics that have no value for the customer

Related Content: How To Turn Reactive Account Management Into a Proactive Growth Machine

Renewal timing

Your renewal process is crucial to retaining your customers. It’s common for sellers to reach out to their customers around the 30-day mark to begin the renewal process. However, this leaves little to no time to make small fixes or adjustments. A tighter renewal process has to be one of your customer growth strategies. 

Skaled CEO, Jake Dunlap, recommends a 4-month or 120-day renewal process in his book The Innovative Seller. Initiating the renewal process this far in advance gives you time to address issues, align priorities, and provide relevant insight. 

The 120-day start time can be adjusted depending on the size and complexity of the deal. However, the process’s fundamental structure remains consistent. This includes reviewing past performance, planning for the next term, and refining the partnership’s strategies and terms moving forward. 

120 Day Renewal Process Timeline:

• • 120 Days Out: Conduct a full review of what you’ve done, what the priorities were, what’s coming up next, and the priorities we think are going to be in place moving forward
  • 90 Days Out: Present V1 of what the partnership plan could look like for the upcoming period
  • 60 Days Out: A more refined V2 of the plan is presented that incorporates any feedback and addresses additional concerns 
  • 30 Days Out: The final contract is in hand and ready for them to sign

Multiple points of contact

One of the top reasons why B2B sellers experience customer churn is because their point of contact left. There’s a 60-70% chance you’ll be successful in selling to your existing customers. That’s hard to do if you can’t contact them. Thankfully, this is 100% in your control and 100% avoidable. Combat this by making a minimum of two to three points of contact minimum per client one of your standard customer growth strategies.

Having a relationship with multiple contacts at your client company does not mean you just meet them once or twice. Your job as their salesperson is to meet with your points of contact at least quarterly. You’ll also want to make sure these points of contact are part of the user team as well as the impact team. Your point of contact on the user team will be a great frame of reference for the day-to-day use of the product. It will then be essential to secure a point of contact on the impact team. They are the ones focused on ROI and the overall impact on the business.

Whether you’re dealing with a big or a small company, you must build these relationships within your client’s business. Create a network of contacts that you meet with regularly to discuss the business, priorities, etc. 

Quantifiable goals

Every single one of your clients should have concrete and measurable goals that are being tracked consistently. While usage is a goal, they likely bought your product to drive specific and significant business impact. Understanding what that goal is and how to measure its success is a crucial step in establishing effective customer growth strategies. You want to avoid vague feedback like “it was helpful” or “it saved time” determining your value. Quantifiable goals will allow you to put metrics to that. 

Poor performance will obviously cause you to lose customers. Lying about it is one of the primary drivers of customer churn. Make sure you have the metrics to support your productivity insights. You can track specific metrics like time saved or performance increase. This will put a number to the increase in productivity instead of relying on anecdotal feedback to establish impact. These numbers are insights that you can bring to your QBRs and have on hand when initiating your renewal process. 

Every time you meet, you realign the goals because goals can change. These are the measurements that will drive those conversations. If you can’t show quantifiable ROI, your customers will move on.

Related Content: Three Key Revenue Metrics to Track in 2024

Achieve Sustainable Growth Through Customer Retention

If you want to stop bleeding customers and have the absolute best chance at renewal, you have to look at these four areas. Value-based monthly “check-ins” and QBRs, tighter renewal processes, multiple points of contact, and quantifiable goals will all contribute to a successful customer growth strategy. They will show your customers that you care about their business and are a partner in their success. 

While shiny new customers are exciting, they aren’t the only growth drivers. Shift your primary focus from new business to customer growth and retention, and keep an eye on your month-to-month or year-to-year retention rate. It will indicate whether your customer growth strategies are effective or if you’re missing the mark. Remember, your existing customers are a valuable asset. Boost retention and be sure you have the strategies in place to nurture those relationships and maintain regular, value-driven interactions.