While customer acquisition is often the prime focus sales and marketing efforts for Software-as-a-Service businesses, customer retention is all too often consigned to an afterthought. But churn is not a problem to be addressed only as the customer leaves. How SaaS Businesses can convert Trial Customers into Paying Customers, will walk you through some simple yet powerful ways of reducing churn. The discussion will include: How you can bring the voice of the customer into the organisation using simple metrics such as the Net Promoter® Score. How you can create internal processes to swiftly and effectively close the loop on customer issues. How you can use feedback to incrementally improve your products around your customer needs.

1. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.
Webinar: Chop Customer Churn!
How SaaS Businesses can convert Trial Customers into Paying Customers
Vive Jaiswal & Mark Dunlap
12 September 2013

2. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Introduction
• Who this is relevant to:
– Sales/marketing/customer experience
executives in SaaS companies
– SaaS providers who would like to convert free
trial customers into paying customers
• What we will cover:
– Why do customers defect
– Using Net Promoter® as a metric in SaaS
– How to convert free trials into paid
subscription
– Best practices from real clients
Thomas S Watson, IBM 1921
*Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of
Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.

3. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
About the hosts…

4. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
A word about CustomerGauge…
• CustomerGauge is the leading real-time
Net Promoter® measurement platform.
– Complete workflow and service
recovery system
– B2b, b2c and b2e solutions
– Automated reporting and digital signage
– Automated, with integrations to CRM
systems including SalesForce.com
– 32 languages (reporting system in EN,
DE, ES, FR, NL, CN)
• Launched 2007
• HQ Amsterdam, global coverage with
partners
A D V E R T I S E M E N T

5. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Why do customers defect?

6. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Lets see again…why do customers defect?

7. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Case Study numbers from Gartner (2004).
Assume 2000 customers
Revenue = $6000m per year
Average Revenue
per Customer = $3m per year
At risk — 55%
Decline in wallet
share
Defect — 45%
Poor experience
22%
Positive
experience
78%
Complain
2%
Don’t
complain
98%
At risk — 34%
Issue not resolved
Defect — 28%
Resolved — 38%440
customers
431
customers
2 customers
$7m
194 customers
$582m
3 customers
$9m
200 customers
$711m
9
customers
It’s the customers that don’t complain you need to worry
about…
In this assumption improving the
customer experience by 1% is worth
$60m
At risk — 55%
Decline in wallet
share
Defect — 45%
Poor experience
22%
Don’t
complain
98%

8. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Net Promoter in a
nutshell
• No more 40 page surveys
to a few contacts!
• Ask everyone a very short
survey, two questions
– “How likely are you to
recommend us to a friend
or colleague?”
• Report on Promoters or
detractors.
• One score
• Read customer comments
Download our cartoon guide:
http://customergauge.com/tag/nps-
comic/

9. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Ask and ye shall receive…
Paying customer
Didn’t
convert
7 days
left
New
signup
• Collect feedback at sign-up
– Sort the renters from
squatters
• Just before expiry
– An opportunity to save
unhappy customers
– If you can’t save, learn
• Didn’t convert? Learn why…
– follow-up, don’t give up
• “Thank you for becoming a
paying customer!”
Tip: optimize this process by
automation and real-time feedback
analysis

10. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Acting on responses
• Organize and be ready
– Expect 50% or more of the responses to
give comments
– Read every comment
• Distribute comments around
organization
– Do it centrally or let the teams arrange
– CLOSE THE FEEDBACK LOOP
• Track open issues and time to close
– Acknowledge with 24 hours
– Let clients know what you will do
– Escalate to board serious issues.
– Report internally on issues
• Categorize, and deal with issues
tactically or strategically
• Customer R&D – product development
TIP! Incentivize staff to close issues
in a short time

11. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
Real client example
• Integrated with Salesforce
– Automated surveying on triggers
– Behind the scene action
– Available to entire organization
• Hard metrics
– NPS by product
– Time to close
– Close loop ratio
• Focus on delta, don’t get fixed
by the actual score
Download case study:
http://customergauge.com/2013/07/
verafin-applying-forensic-skills-to-
customer-feedback/

12. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV
In a nutshell…
• Use a simple metric – NPS is
awesome!
• Its not more work, its time travel
• Get feedback and act
• With great data comes great
responsibility
• Automate the process, focus on
customers
• Communicate regularly and thank
the ones who respond
Check out how you can operate a world class
NPS program:
http://www.slideshare.net/adorrell/webinar-six-ways-
to-operate-a-world-class-nps-program-29-aug2013

13. © CustomerGauge / Directness BV Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.
Thank you!
Like to learn more?
Get in touch
vivek.jaiswal@directness.net
mark.dunlap@directness.net