Strategies for Offering Value Beyond the Contract

I've taken a lot of "help" calls from companies between five and $75 million this month. These organizations had established products, solid-ish processes, and confident customer success (CS) teams. Yet, they all faced a surprising challenge: Some of their “green” status customers—those who appeared healthy on paper—were churning. This issue wasn’t immediately obvious. After all, if a customer’s health score is green, it means they’re engaged, onboarding successfully, or showing other positive indicators. But digging deeper, patterns emerged. These companies struggled to proactively *demonstrate ROI* or to clearly communicate the *tangible outcomes* that their solutions were delivering. Or they were not reporting these to their champions, instead just working with the tactical folks on a day to day basis. Why does this matter? Even if a customer appears happy right now, they’ll eventually ask the question, *“Is this partnership still worth it?”* If you don’t answer that question decisively and regularly, you’re leaving the door open for competitors—or for priorities to shift elsewhere. When the CFO says they need to cut vendor budget, will you make that cut? Here are a few strategies I shared with these companies (and that other businesses may want to consider): 1. **Make ROI proof points a recurring conversation** It’s no longer enough to highlight value during the sales process or during QBRs. Value needs to be a consistent theme in your customer interactions. Can you integrate ROI metrics into your dashboards, monthly updates, or executive business reviews? For example, one company started sharing quick, personalized Loom summaries with their customers every quarter—a snapshot of time saved, cost reduction achieved, or improved conversion rates. 2. **Leverage customer health scores wisely** Many health scores factor in product usage metrics, survey responses, or support outcomes. But consider adding measurable value indicators to your health scoring framework. For instance, tracking whether customers are leveraging advanced features that typically generate the biggest business outcomes—and flagging accounts that aren’t. 3. **Create champions, not just users** Your champion is your biggest ally, but champions often rotate roles or move between companies. Develop succession plans to expand advocacy within the organization. That could look like enabling a wider audience within your customer base to access training, insights, or leadership alignment around the software’s benefits. Ultimately, customer churn isn’t always a reaction to problems—it can result from feeling disconnected from the value you’re delivering. Stop thinking of “green” health scores as the finish line. Instead, make them a checkpoint in an ongoing process of proving, protecting, and growing your customers' ROI. How do you ensure value communication in your CS strategy?

“We're seeing less retainer work and more project work. Our future growth is in project work." I’ve heard this from several agency CEOs in recent weeks. And each conversation revealed the same blind spot. These are full-service firms. Performing well. Not in crisis. But all seeing the same shift: Shorter commitments. Defined scopes. Specific outcomes. Most are responding the way you'd expect: by improving delivery. Clearer roles. Better project management. Stronger tools. Smart moves. Necessary ones. They’re trying to retain margins and reduce churn through solid execution. But they’re missing something bigger: The need to redesign relationships at the strategic level--so continuity survives when it’s defined one project at a time. Project work doesn’t just change scopes. It breaks conversations, planning, and revenue predictability. Client engagement becomes episodic. Forecasts become guesswork. Account leads must re-earn the relationship, again and again. If clients aren’t thinking about what comes after this project, they won’t plan--or budget--for it. Without a model that shows them what’s next, the relationship stalls. Even if the work is excellent. That’s not just an account leader's challenge. It’s a leadership responsibility--to design offerings that proactively create continuity outside of a retainer. Some firms are solving for this now. They’re productizing their value--designing structured, outcome-focused offerings that solve specific phases of a bigger client problem. Each one is connected--mapped to the next logical need. Clients don’t need to be “sold.” They move forward, naturally. The result? • Continuity without long-term contracts • Cross-sell and up-sell built into the architecture • Relationships based on progress, not dependency Productization done right isn't packaging; it’s progression--designed into your portfolio to move clients toward better outcomes. In practice, this looks like: • Structured solutions with clear outcomes and next steps    • A map of client needs and growth stages that clearly point to your related offerings    • Scoping and pricing that make next steps visible, viable, and valuable Ensuring progression isn’t a sales technique. It’s a commercial operating model. It gives client leads a path forward. It gives clients a sense of movement. And it gives your business a more predictable, compounding revenue base. Even a modest shift in continuity--from 25% to 45%--can double client value. No headcount. No extra pipeline. So yes--tighten delivery. Strengthen systems. But don’t stop there. Design what comes next. Before your client knows they’ll need it. Build a model that moves--so clients do, too. That’s what turns project work into a strategy that scales.

Customer success isn’t just about retention. It’s about proving value at every stage—not just when renewal comes up. At Salesloft, we think about value demonstration as an ongoing process. Not a last-minute push before a contract is up. Our customers buy Salesloft to solve a problem, drive revenue, and make the selling process better and more productive. If they’re not seeing those outcomes, we haven’t done our job. That’s why we take a multi-layered approach to demonstrating value throughout the customer journey: Early wins: Customers need to see quick impact. Whether it’s faster rep onboarding, better pipeline coverage, or early engagement signals. Mid-cycle validation: Success plans aren’t just for onboarding. We keep a pulse on key outcomes—like pipeline coverage, meeting conversion rates, and deal velocity—to ensure customers stay on course. If gaps emerge, we help refine workflows and adjust strategy so they continue seeing impact. Long-term impact proof: When renewal conversations happen, they shouldn’t be about justifying the tool. They should be about amplifying what’s already working. A strong CS motion doesn’t just retain customers—it creates advocates. If we’re doing this right, customers should be able to quantify what Salesloft has done for them. More deals closed. Higher rep productivity. Faster deal cycles. Less admin work. This is why we don’t just sell Salesloft—we use it ourselves. Our own team uses Salesloft to track customer adoption, measure impact, and make sure every customer has clear, provable value. The best CS teams don’t wait until renewal to prove value. They make it undeniable from the start. How is your team proving impact to customers throughout their journey? #salestech #revtech #revenueorchestrationplatform #customervalue #customersuccess